Blame it on the Tinsel
by Eve8
Summary: Rated for very mild language. Carter's expecting lots of family, and when they finally show up, Jack gets snowed in with them. Christmas, a crazy family, some strange traditions, and mistletoe feature prominently. SJ. Complete.
1. Blame it on the tinsel

Over the holidays, my little sister and I had a conversation where I tried to convince her to put our family into a story. She didn't think people would find our family believable and is in the middle of a few other stories, so she told me to go ahead and do it myself. I'm taking liberties here - as far as I know, Sam and Jacob have never flat-out stated that Mark is Sam's ONLY sibling, so I'm just making him Sam's twin, and substituting the two of them for my sister Kate and our brother Jack. Everybody else, besides Jacob of course, is who they are, although I've had to play with the ages a bit. And we'll go ahead and set this story in Season 4, because it's my favorite season, I liked Sam's hair best then, and we hadn't seen her house yet at that point, so I can make it look however I want.

Ch 1: Blame it on the tinsel

"Oh for cryin' out LOUD!" Colonel Jack O'Neill moaned as he led his team into the commissary. The entire room looked, in his opinion, like Santa's reindeer had eaten the entire contents of a Hallmark store and then been violently ill. There was a big artificial tree in one corner, absolutely covered in decorations. Every table sported a red or green tablecloth and had a poinsettia centerpiece. From the lights, various tinsel and streamers were hung, there were holly and fairy lights everywhere, and the food staff all sported Santa hats, although most of them didn't look too happy about it.

"Those look like a fire hazard," Carter, to Jack's right, commented. He glanced at her and followed her eyes to the shiny stuff hanging from the light fixtures. He nodded and proceeded to the end of the food line.

They collected their meals in silence and wove through the tables to their favorite one, all sitting down simultaneously. "I have stated this previously, but I must reiterate. Your world is a strange place," Teal'c said solemnly as he looked around at the decorations.

Carter flashed him a smile and reached for the pepper Jack had just been about to grab. Daniel immediately launched into a long-winded explanation of the evolution of Christmas traditions. Teal'c either listened politely or was meditating with his eyes open, Jack couldn't tell. Carter was definitely tuning him out, but the constant droning of Daniel's voice never got to her the way it did him.

Finally, he could take it no more. He let his fork clatter loudly to his tray and said, "SO, what's everyone doing for Christmas?"

"General Hammond has given me permission to use the four days he has given us off to visit my son R'yac."

"Good," Jack said approvingly.

Carter gave Teal'c a warm smile. "Say hi to him for us."

"I will, Major Carter. Thank you."

"What about you, Danny-boy?"

"I'm - actually going to be off-world too," he said, trying to sound casual but failing miserably.

"You are?" Jack asked pointedly when he failed to volunteer any more information.

"Yeah. I'm - taking Dr. Walker's place on SG9's mission so he can come home for Christmas. He's been away from his family for over three weeks, and he has two small children. Plus it will be really interesting." Jack knew Daniel wanted the subject dropped.

Carter squeezed Daniel's forearm and said, "We'll miss you."

He gave her his warmest smile, and Jack remembered they were the first family Daniel had ever really had since his parents had died.

Trying to lighten the mood and change the subject, he turned to Carter with a teasing glint in his eye and said, "All right, let's have it."

"Have what, sir?" she asked, taking a big bite of blue Jell-o. Jack was positive they only made that stuff for her. He had never seen anyone else eat it.

"The argument that starts, 'well, Colonel, if Daniel's going to be working over the holidays I should get to as well. There's a really important doohickey in my lab that needs my immediate attention or we're all doomed..."

Daniel stifled a laugh into a snort and shoved a big spoonful of something resembling mashed potatoes into his mouth.

Teal'c took a sip of water.

Carter shrugged and said, "Not this time, sir. Sorry to disappoint you."

"You have plans?" he asked, too quickly to squash the surprise in his voice.

He could tell she was restraining herself from rolling her eyes with a great difficulty. "Yes, sir, I have family coming."

"Your turn?" Daniel asked.

"Yup," she answered.

Jack looked back and forth between them. "Your turn for what?" he asked.

"To host Christmas. We rotate."

"You and Mark?"

Daniel snorted for some reason. Carter shot him a warning look. "Yes, sir. And my other brothers, and my sister."

"What? How many..."

"Major Carter is one of six children, O'Neill," Teal'c informed him. "She and her brother Mark are twins and therefore he was her closest sibling until he and her father had their fallout."

"Since when? How did I not know about all of this?" he demanded of all of them.

She shrugged. "You never asked, sir."

He watched the three of them continue eating in comfortable silence, and realized it was true. She fit in so perfectly with the rest of SG1, none of whom really had much family left, that it had never occurred to him she had a regular family as well.

"What about you, sir?" she asked politely, interrupting his thoughts.

"Me? Oh, I don't know. Hammond always invites me over for Christmas dinner, but I dunno. I usually don't go." He knew she'd read his eyes and drop it. Teal'c and Daniel would follow her lead and pretend they hadn't been paying attention. She did, then they did.

As they finished up their meal, he looked around at all of them fondly. He was going to miss each of them, he realized. They spent most of their lives together, and the thought of four days apart was unheard of. He smiled at their backs as he followed them out of the commissary.

At least he had people he cared about enough to miss. What? he thought defensively. He was allowed to be sentimental at Christmas - and he could always just blame it on all that damn tinsel.


	2. Lending a hand

Ch 2: Lending a hand

Halfway through his first day of downtime, the 22nd, Jack was feeling like a pretty big loser. He was still on base, mainly because he didn't really have a reason to go home, and he was bored out of his tree without the rest of his team around.

Which partially explained why he was already in the control room when a wormhole unexpectedly engaged and the usual excitement followed. SG1's code was quickly sent through and Daniel's face appeared on all the monitors.

"Daniel, you in trouble?" he demanded quickly.

"Oh, you're there already. Good. And no. But thank you. I ah, could use a favor though."

"What?"

"Um, well, I promised to help Sam get ready for her family thing and I completely forgot about it after I talked to Dr. Walker. Sam, of course, being Sam, didn't remind me. Which means she's probably trying to do a bunch of decorating and stuff by herself. Can you go give her a hand?"

"Um, Daniel, I'm pretty sure Carter's got a phone. If she needed help she'd..."

"Jack," Daniel said pointedly.

"Yeah, you're right, we'd never know," Jack finished. "All right, fine."

"Great, thanks. Tell her I'm sorry and I hope she has a great time."

"Yeah, yeah. Just try not to get shot, Spacemonkey."

"Merry Christmas to you too, Jack. Ah, over and out."

Jack nodded at the few technicians still on duty and left. He went back to his quarters and changed into his street clothes, jeans and a thick gray sweater Daniel had given him last Christmas (matches your hair, Daniel had said with a smug grin) and grabbed his jacket.

It was extremely cold outside, and though it had been over a week since the last snowfall, there was still a respectable amount of it on the ground. Pulling a knit hat on as he made his way to his truck, he debated calling Carter ahead of time. He figured if he did she'd probably just tell him he didn't need to come over, so he decided against it.

As he headed towards her house, he figured she was probably tackling her day with typical Carter-ish single-minded focus. Which probably meant she hadn't given any thought to eating. Changing directions, he decided to pick up a pizza first.

When he pulled into her driveway, he saw that Daniel had been absolutely correct. His 2IC was on top of a ladder, hanging icicle lights with more precision than he'd have thought possible. She was so engrossed that she hadn't even glanced over at him as he killed the truck's engine and got out of the car. Not wanting to scare her and make her lose her balance, he watched her for several moments.

She was wearing the same hat he was and black gloves, but he thought she must be freezing - she was only wearing jeans, a blue fleecy thing of some kind, and a heavy vest over it. Completing the ensemble was the giant tool belt she had secured around her waist. She'd obviously had trouble with it, it appeared to be wrapped around twice.

She was actually measuring the distance between the hooks she was attaching, he marveled as he watched her slow progress.

"Carter!" he finally called. She looked over at him in surprise and waved. He grabbed the pizza, slammed his door, and headed over to the base of the ladder, inspecting its steadiness suspiciously.

"Hi, sir. What are you doing here?"

"Umm, Daniel said you needed help - and I brought pizza."

She looked at him, clearly puzzled. "Daniel? He's gone..."

"Yeah, I know, he radioed in, said he had told you he'd help you with all this and didn't and wanted me to come check on you."

"He... wow. Well, thanks for coming over, sir, I really appreciate it. But ah, Daniel never promised to help me get ready for everyone. I think he was..."

"Trying to be funny?" Jack supplied.

She looked at him funny and said, "Something like that, sir."

"Well, was I at least correct in assuming you haven't eaten yet?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Is it lunchtime already?"

"14.00, Carter. Come on down, you look frozen."

"Sir, I can't just leave these lights halfway done," she objected, going back to the task at hand.

"Sure you can," he said with a shrug. "Come on. Before the pizza gets as cold as you are."

She laughed and said, "All right, sir." He watched her make her way carefully down the ladder, steadying it just in case.

She headed inside and he followed, taking off his coat and hat while she removed her tool belt and vest. Catching him looking at the tool belt in amusement, she said, "It was Dad's. Good for holding stuff when you're climbing up a ladder."

"I noticed," he said as they walked through to the kitchen, Carter now carrying the pizza.

She set the pizza down on the table and gestured for him to sit down. He did, looking around her kitchen as she opened various cabinets, taking out plates and glasses. By the amount of time it was taking her to locate everything, he realized she didn't even know where stuff was in her own kitchen. That's more like it, he thought with a smile.

He looked around the kitchen, that still looked as though it had never been used, and remembered the weekend he, Daniel, and Teal'c had spent moving Carter into her Dad's large house after he had gone off to be a Tok'ra. It had been at her dad's request, and as she spent most of her time on base anyway, she hadn't cared either way. The few times in the past two years that he had been to her house, he felt strange, because it didn't really feel like Carter at all to him. He wondered if she felt at home there, or if she felt the same way.

"So, how's everything at work, sir?" she asked, handing him a plate, a glass of soda, (probably diet, he thought) and sitting down across from him with a smile. He opened the pizza box and waited for her to dig in.

"Surviving without you, but just barely, I'm told," he said, taking a couple slices for himself.

She smiled down at the pizza and said, "Well, I'd much rather be there than here, sir, to be honest. I found all of Dad's old Christmas decorations, but I hadn't realized how much work it was for him putting everything up."

"So don't put it all up," he suggested with a shrug.

"But my brothers and sister go all out at Christmas... the kids would be disappointed."

"Speaking of which... let's hear some more about this big mysterious family of yours, Carter."

"Well, there's not much to tell... My sister Emily's the oldest, she's got four kids, my brother Nigel has three, Jamie has three, Mark's got two... and my little brother Christopher, the baby of the family, is still in college."

"Wow. So there are going to be like... a lot of people here."

"Yes, sir. Umm... 21, including me. They start arriving at noon on the 24th. Which is why I've got to make sure everything goes perfectly."

"What about Dad? He's not coming?" Jack asked, surprised. With the way Jacob obviously felt about Sam, it was surprising he wouldn't try to come home for Christmas with all of his children.

"He's busy, apparently. I sent him a message but..." she sighed deeply and he realized he was just beginning to scratch the surface of a bunch of family issues. "He said he can't get away. It's all right, sir," she said quickly at the look on his face. "Ever since Mom died, Christmas has been... extremely stressful for him. I always thought he figured he couldn't make it as good as Mom, so he'd rather not try at all. Plus it must be even more painful for him than it ever was for us... my sister was old enough when it happened to sort of take over for Mom, she's the real mothery type, not really like me at all..."

"Don't sell yourself short, Carter, I've seen you with Cassie," Jack interrupted.

She smiled at him in surprise, but said, "Thanks, sir, but that's just icing. Emily's more like Janet. Anyway, to make a long story short, I've got a lot of cleaning and decorating to do."

"And it's too boring for ya," Jack realized. Of course, there wasn't anything Carter couldn't do, just things that were so boring she couldn't stand to do them.

She shrugged. "It's not the most exciting stuff on earth, but it's only fair that I take a turn along with everyone else. Especially now that I have room for everybody."

"This house is big, all right, but 21 people..." Jack said doubtfully.

"When you're from a big family, 'having room,' has a slightly different meaning, sir. It'll be crowded and loud and insane, but that's what we're all used to."

"Still," he said. "I would think your heavy work load would exempt you from taking a turn."

"It did, for a while. But now that they all know I've got Dad's house, and Dad's out of the rotation, I figured I should get back in there. Anyway, it's only once every five years. Obviously Chris can't host yet, as he's at school."

"Where does he go?"

"Stanford. He's flying in with Mark's family."

"So brilliance runs in the family."

She smiled and shrugged. "You're probably wondering why my dad and I never mentioned anybody else..."

"I understand why you didn't. I didn't ever ask. I'm sorry. Sometimes I forget there are... normal families that actually exist."

"It's okay, sir. And for the record, my family is far from normal!"

"Noted. I am surprised your dad never mentioned other kids... I mean he's obviously so proud of you..."

"Now he is. He wasn't always. And after Mom died, the older ones blamed him more than Chris and I did... and I'm the only one who followed him into the Air Force, so..."

"Daddy's favorite?" he asked with a smile.

"According to the rest," she said with a small smile. "Although that really only sets you up to be Daddy's biggest disappointment as well."

"Carter, you could never disappoint anybody," he said honestly.

She smiled in surprise at the compliment. The moment was getting a little too intense for comfort, so he cleared his throat and said, "Well, you're in luck, Carter. Because you happen to have a CO who's dumb enough to do housework and decoration without going insane from boredom. And he's free today."

She looked at him in shock. "Sir... I couldn't..."

"Consider it a Christmas present," he said with a shrug.

So they spent the entire day hanging icicle lights, covering shrubs with nets of lights, wrapping her trees, and setting up a perimeter around the yard. Then they cleaned the entire house and decorated the inside. They didn't talk very much while they worked, but each was glad to see that the way they worked in sync in the field transferred outside just as well. Finally, they were finished.

They sank to the couch, tired but happy to be done. "Carter, I can't help but notice you're missing something crucial to the whole Christmas experience," he commented.

"The tree," she agreed, nodding. "I'm going to get one tomorrow, put it up in that corner over there."

"Oh. And have the kids decorate it Christmas eve?"

"Well, that's what we used to do, but since there are so many nieces and nephews now, it just turns into a huge fight. So no. It will be decorated when they get here."

"Oh. Sounds good."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I'll let you get some sleep. Sounds like you might want to stock up before the family arrives." He got up, stretched, and headed to the closet for his jacket.

"Sir, thank you so much for helping me today. I really appreciate it," she said sincerely.

He smiled and nodded. "No problem, Carter. Have a good holiday."

"You too, sir," she said with a smile, hugging him impulsively, so quickly that he didn't have time to hug her back before she had already stepped away from him.

"Merry Christmas," he said sincerely, pulling his hat down over his ears and heading out the door.


	3. The forest for the trees

Ch 3: The forest for the trees

Jack hadn't been surprised to find he missed Daniel and Teal'c. However, he was surprised that he found himself missing Daniel's meddling. Because he needed advice, and Daniel was good at listening, and not shy about offering advice. And Teal'c was good at it too, just in a less annoying way. He tried to imagine what they would say if they were there.

"Hey, guys, I know I'm a big loser and I spent all day yesterday helping Carter clean house and all, but I'd like to go over there again today and can't think of a good reason..." he tried to the empty room.

Daniel, he figured, would probably tell him to do what he wanted, as long as he was honest with himself and with Sam. Teal'c would probably just tilt his head and say something like "If you did not know the answer to the question already, O'Neill, you would not ask."

Still. She wanted to leave it in the room, and he had agreed to it. The only problem with that was that he wasn't sure exactly what that meant. Was it still okay to hang out outside of work, just as friends? Not that they usually did that without Daniel and Teal'c, but still... they had done it yesterday and nothing had happened.

Well, not nothing. He had loved seeing her all relaxed and excited about Christmas. But she didn't need to know about that. He got an idea. Grinning and touching his fingertips like Mr. Burns, he said, "Exxxxcellent," to the empty room, got up, and headed out the door.

Carter answered the unexpected knock on her door and was surprised to see her CO standing there, supporting a big Christmas tree. "Hey, Carter. Got a delivery."

"Sir, you didn't need to do this," she said in surprise, stepping aside and holding the door open.

"Well, I realized it must be hard for you to bring home a tree in that little car of yours, at least without getting it all scratched up. So since I've got the truck and all, I just thought it might save you some trouble," he said with a shrug.

"Well, thank you, sir. It's a beautiful tree. I'll go grab the stand from the garage," she said, squeezing his arm lightly as she walked past him.

He smiled until he realized he was grinning like a dork at an empty room and waited until she came back. "We usually put it up over here," she said, taking the stand over to a corner of the living room.

"All right." He carried the tree over to the corner and set it in the stand.

"Just hold it straight for a second, please, sir..." Carter said, dropping to the floor and wriggling underneath the tree to secure it in place. Jack couldn't help taking the opportunity to observe the view as she worked. He looked away quickly when she wriggled back out and got to her feet.

"What?" she asked self-consciously, brushing pine needles off her sweater.

"I was just thinking we spent so long cleaning up and now I've got pine needles all over your living room," he said quickly.

"Oh that's okay. I'll just run the vacuum again later. Would you like a cup of coffee, sir?"

"Sounds good. And... you don't have to keep calling me 'sir' when we're not at work, you know."

"Okay, Colonel."

Well, it wasn't Jack, but it was better. He followed her into the kitchen. "So... what are you doing today?"

"Well, now that I don't have to spend part of it wrestling a tree... I just have to do a bunch of grocery shopping."

"You're going to cook?" he asked, wincing as soon as he had said it and realized how it sounded. Like he didn't believe it was possible and was concerned she might set fire to her house.

"Well... not by myself," she admitted. "My sister and sisters-in-law are way better at it than I am, so they're going to be doing most of it. I've just got this long list of stuff to get."

"Oh. I didn't mean you couldn't..."

She could tell he felt bad about what he had said, so she laughed and shrugged. "It's no secret I can't cook, Colonel. No need to feel bad about it. You should hear the jokes Cassie and Janet make..."

"I've heard a few," he admitted. They shared a smile.

"So, that's really all. It's going to take a while though. Oh, and decorate the tree of course."

"Yeah."

"You're welcome to help me if you like. I mean, just bringing it and setting it up was more than enough but... if you wanted to... you could."

"Well... I'm not really one for holiday tradition, but it doesn't seem right to decorate a tree by yourself," he said, hoping to sound casual.

She smiled and got up. "Good. I'll go get the lights."

Ten minutes later, Jack was losing his patience. "Ohfercryinoutloud, just put em on, Carter!"

"Sir, this is a very delicate procedure. They have to be evenly dispersed..."

"No they don't. It's a Christmas tree."

"I just want it to look good."

"It's a Christmas tree. It will."

"Okay then, why don't you do that half and I'll do this one," she suggested with a hint of a challenge in her eyes.

"All right," he agreed, grabbing his own strand of lights.

Thirty minutes later, he was completely finished with his half of the tree. "Done!" he declared, coming over to look at hers. She was just finishing with the lights. He rolled his eyes.

She glared at him, but they were clearly both amused by the situation and just putting on an act. "Let's see it then," she said, trying to step around him.

He put a hand on each shoulder and stopped her. "Not till you're done. We'll light it up and then you can see."

"All right. Then you can't look at my side either."

"Carter. There's nothing ON your side," he pointed out.

"Well... all right then."

He sat down on the couch and watched her begin. "Oh Carter," he called after ten minutes.

"Yes, Colonel?"

"What exactly are you DOING?"

"Sorting the ornaments," she admitted. At least she had the decency to look sheepish about it, he thought. "I... I like to ah... see how many of each kind there are first, so I can figure out how far to spread similar ones apart from each other," she explained.

He couldn't contain an amused laugh. "Of course you do," he said around a full-blown grin.

Half an hour later, she was finally finished. Her side of the tree was completely symmetrical. All the ornaments formed a perfect pattern. "There," she said, stepping back in satisfaction. She turned to him and said, "Now I get to see your side."

"Uh... you're probably going to hate it," he suddenly realized. "It's okay. You can change it if you want."

"Colonel," she said in surprise.

"No, I don't care. Your tree should look how you want it to look."

"And I'm sure it does. Now let me see it."

"What about the angel?"

"Oh yeah!" She dragged her coffee table over and before he could offer her a hand had climbed on top of it and was positioning the angel. "Is it straight?" she called over her shoulder.

Realizing she was probably talking about the angel and not her ass, he dragged his eyes up to the top of the tree and said, "Basically."

"Sir," she said pointedly.

"Okay, okay. It's not perfect. It's tilted to the left a little bit."

She adjusted it until he called, "There, stop!"

"You sure?"

"Yeah, it's perfect. Come look."

She climbed off the table, dragged it back, and turned to survey the tree. "It is. Thanks."

"Yeah. Light it up." She nodded and edged around to the back of the tree, plugging it in.

They surveyed the tree critically. It was perfectly obvious who had decorated which side. Hers was immaculate. His looked very... haphazard.

"Do you hate it?" he asked, realizing he actually cared about whether or not she liked his stupid half of a tree. What the hell is wrong with me? he thought to himself.

"No, I don't hate it," she said quietly. He turned to look at her and she was smiling at the tree, a slightly dazzled look in her eyes. When she caught him looking at her, she blushed a little and said, "Christmas. It ah..."

"Does strange things to you?" he guessed.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I'll leave you to the strangeness then, Carter. Once again, have a great time with your family."

"Thanks for your help, sir. And the tree."

She walked him to the door, once again surprising him by hugging him quickly. This time he was a little more prepared for it though and was able to hug her back for a second. "Anytime, Carter. And if you need anymore help, you know where to find me."

"Thanks, Colonel. Merry Christmas."


	4. Opening the floodgates

Ch 4: Opening the Floodgates

Jack woke up to the phone ringing. Rolling over and rubbing his eyes, he picked it up and said hoarsely, "O'Neill."

"Um, Colonel, can you hear me?" Carter asked loudly over the phone.

"Yeah, where are you, Carter?"

"I'm at home, sir. I was hoping that offer of help is still good... a pipe burst in the night and my basement is flooding, every plumber in town is closed for the holidays and I can't get the water to stop..."

"I'll be right there," he said quickly, hanging up the phone.

Ten minutes later, he let himself into Carter's house without even knocking. He followed the sounds of gushing water down to the basement, where Carter was up to her knees in water, completely soaked in her pajamas.

A huge pipe was gushing water from the ceiling. He quickly shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it back up the stairs, hurrying down.

"Sir, thanks for coming, I have no idea where to turn off the water..." It didn't take someone who knew her as well as he did to tell she was freaking out.

"It's probably back here," he guessed, wading through the water over to a corner by the water heater. He turned off the freezing water, and the leaky pipe slowed to a trickle and died down.

"Thank you," she said gratefully, hurrying over to see what he had done.

"Okay, now we need to get all this out of here. Don't suppose you've got a pump?"

"Um, no sir." She glanced at the clock nervously. "They're going to start arriving just after noon," she said worriedly.

"Hey, calm down," Jack instructed, alarmed. She usually didn't get this worked up unless they were in a Goa'uld jail cell. "We'll take care of it, Carter. No big deal. Do you have a couple of buckets? And a shop vac?"

"Yes..."

"Okay. Here's what we're going to do. You go make a big pot of coffee, because it's freezing down here and we need to keep somewhat warm. We're going to get rid of all this water, then work on fixing that pipe so you'll have water while your family's here. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now, go."

"Yes, sir." She waded over to the stairs and hurried up. While she made the coffee, he started getting rid of the water.

It was a very, very slow process, and no matter what he tried, he wasn't able to convince Carter everything was going to be okay.

Until he slipped while working and landed flat on his back in the water. Now as soaked as she was, he sat there laughing, until she couldn't help but join in. Offering him a hand up, he took advantage of her sudden giggling fit to pull her down with him. She was already wet, he figured it wouldn't make much difference. Slapping his arm, she moved to get up, but he decided to take full advantage of the situation and use it to get her to relax.

Which he did by dumping a bucket of water on her head.

She wiped water out of her eyes and spluttered, "This means war, sir!"

Which is why her brother Mark, his wife Karen, their two daughters, and her youngest brother Chris all were forced to let themselves into the house when nobody answered their repeated knocking. Seeing the basement door open and hearing noise coming from down there, Chris hurried down the stairs and stopped in surprise.

The two feet of water were surprising, but even more surprising than that was the fact that his sister was wrestling around in the water with a gray-haired man, and they both appeared to be having the time of their lives.

"Mark!" he called over his shoulder. "I found her!"

At the yelling, both Sam and Jack froze and looked up at the stairs in surprise.

"Um, Chris. Hi!" Sam said in surprise, suddenly realizing how the situation must look. "Um, this is my CO, Colonel Jack O'Neill..."

"Okay, Sam. And you've put in an indoor pool?" Chris asked with a big grin Jack instantly recognized.

"No... a pipe burst and we were... taking care of it."

"I see," he said solemnly.

Jack stood up and hauled Carter to her feet as well, as several more people arrived on the stairs behind Chris.

"Um, hey guys," Sam offered, wading over to the stairs. Jack followed uncertainly. "As you can see, there's been a bit of an emergency this morning. This is my CO, Colonel Jack O'Neill. Colonel, that's my brother Chris, my twin brother Mark, his wife Karen, and that's Julia and Piper."

They all exchanged greetings and handshakes. The two little girls tried to hug Carter, but their mom stopped them. "You can hug her when she's dry," she told them.

"Looks like you could use a hand, sis," Chris said, taking off his coat and draping it over Julia's head.

"That's okay, Chris..." Sam started.

Jack clapped the boy on the back and said, "Excellent. Grab a bucket. Carter, go get dry."

"But..." He had his strictest Colonel face on, so she sighed and mumbled, "Yes, sir." She followed her brother's family up the stairs.

Jack turned to the boy, who was really more of a young man now that Jack took a better look at him, taller than Carter, with short hair even lighter than hers. Jack thought he looked like a walking endorsement for the surfer lifestyle. Noticing that Chris was scrutinizing him just as closely, he said, "So, you're the 'baby,' huh?"

"Nice to know how the rest of them still see me," Chris said, grabbing one of the buckets. "And you're the CO?"

"Yup."

"Didn't realize this was part of the job description," Chris commented suggestively as they got to work.

"Uh..."

"Relax, I'm not trying to give you a hard time. That would be Mark's job anyway."

"And what's your job?"

"Resident goofball and heavy lifter," he said with another big smile. Jack took in the unruly hair and blue eyes and smiled back at the kid. He reminded Jack of Carter right after she had joined the program, before she had gotten control of the big grin he missed seeing so often.

"So, you're at Stanford?"

"Yeah."

"What's your major?"

"English."

"English? I wouldn't have guessed that."

"Yeah, well if you only know Sam, you wouldn't. She's the only science geek in the family. Nigel and Jamie used to tell her she was adopted."

Jack laughed. He had taken an instant liking to Carter's younger sibling. "So, know how to fix a busted pipe?"

Carter kept checking on them, making sure they didn't need anything. Finally, Jack told her they'd come up when they were done and unless she heard screaming, to stay out of the basement until then.

"You just killed her excuse for getting away from the rest of the clan," Chris informed him as the basement door slammed after her.

Wincing at the sound of the door, Jack asked, "What?"

"She and I are alike in one way. We're nothing like the rest of the family. And as we're the only ones without kids, we both sometimes... like to escape the madness."

"So the rest of your family's here already?"

"That would be my guess," Chris said with a shrug. "Hey, looks like we're done."

"Yeah. Let's get started on the pipe."

Two hours later, they had the basement mostly dry and the pipe fixed. They left a couple of big fans blowing to dry out the rest and made their soggy way back upstairs. Jack's knee was protesting loudly to the cold and the wet, and he entered a kitchen full of people cooking.

"Chris!" A woman that had to be Carter's sister exclaimed happily, setting down the spoon and bowl in her hand and hurrying over to them. She looked almost exactly like her sister, just older, and with long dark auburn hair instead of blonde. She threw her arms around her little brother, who was actually much bigger than she was, despite the fact that he was soaking wet, and kissed him on the cheek.

He kissed her back said, "Hi, Emily. Oh, this is..."

"You must be Jack," she said warmly, turning to him with a smile. "Sorry... do you mind if I call you Jack? I'm Sam's sister."

"Nice to meet you," Jack said, shaking the hand she offered him. "And no, I don't mind."

"Good. You guys are freezing," she stated suddenly.

"We're okay," Chris assured her, heading over to the rest of the women in the room and greeting them all, but Emily was still demanding Jack's attention.

"Do you have something dry to change into? I'm sure between all the people here we can find you something..."

"I've got a bag in my truck," he assured her.

"All right, I'll send my husband out to get it."

"I'll get it," Jack said quickly.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said briskly. "You're soaking wet and it's snowing like mad outside."

"It is?" he asked in surprise.

"Yup. It's coming down hard."

Three children suddenly ran through the kitchen, two of them in pursuit of the first. Emily snagged the third one that went by and said, "Go tell Uncle John to come into the kitchen."

"But we're..."

"Matty," she said firmly.

"All right," the boy grumbled, running back through the door he had used to enter.

"Jack, come over here a minute," Chris called. Jack headed over to the counter, followed by Emily.

"Sorry," Emily apologized. "We didn't even finish introducing you. This is Anne, she's Matty's mom."

"Nice to meet you," the small redhead said.

"And Caroline, who as you can see is carrying the next addition to the family." Jack shook the pretty brunette's hand. She was very, very pregnant.

She smiled warmly and said, "So you're the savior of the day."

"I don't know about that," Jack said uncomfortably.

"Nonsense, Sam told us about the busted pipe. We're very grateful, Jack," Emily said sincerely. "You saved our Christmas."

Not used to such undiluted praise, he didn't quite know what to say. Luckily, Chris kept him from having to say anything by saying loudly, "Hey, I helped!"

"Yes, we're grateful to you too, Chris," Emily said, smiling at her youngest brother fondly. "Now, take off your shoes and socks, go grab a towel from the laundry room, go upstairs and change, and try not to drip on the floor anymore."

"Yes, ma'am," he muttered, going off to do exactly as she instructed.

An extremely handsome man came into the kitchen. "Matthew said you were looking for me?" he asked Emily. Jack was surprised at the perfect British accent.

"Yes. Jack, this is my husband John. John, Sam's friend Jack." The two men shook hands. "As you can see, he was helping with the pipes."

"Yeah, sorry I couldn't give you a hand there, but I would have only made things worse."

"Not much of a handy man," Emily said in a loud stage-whisper. Everyone laughed.

"No problem," Jack assured him.

"Honey, you can help Jack now. Can you go grab his bag from his truck so he can get dry? It's that big green one in the driveway that Mark parked behind."

"Sure, no problem," he said, squeezing his wife's shoulder and smiling at Jack before hurrying out the kitchen.

Chris walked by rubbing his hair dry with a towel, barefoot. He tossed a towel at Jack as he passed. "Thanks," Jack called after him.

Suddenly, the kitchen door was thrown open again and an endless stream of children of various sizes poured in, led by the little redheaded boy who ran through earlier. "See, told you," he said, stopping and pointing at Jack. "New guy."

"Matty!" his mother objected. "Where are your manners?"

"Sorry," Matty mumbled apologetically.

Chuckling, Jack said, "That's okay," and tried to survey the lot of them. He only got as far as determining there were eleven of them, and two of them were identical girls.

"We met him already when we first got here," a little voice piped up. Jack identified the two little girls he had already met, trying to remember which one was older. Julia, he remembered.

"Right," Emily said briskly. "So you know Julia and Piper. Those are Mark's. Let's see... this one's Sydney, this is Rory, and the identical twins are Grace and Kailey. The one on the right is Kailey. Those four are mine. Say hi, guys."

He took the time during the chorus of greetings to try and put their faces and names to memory. Rory was the easiest, as he was the only one in the group wearing a Batman costume. "Then you met Matty, briefly. Then there's Conor, and the little one is Liliana. Those are Nigel and Anne's." They said hi and Jack smiled at them and at Anne. "Then we have the other twins, Kieran and Gwen."

"They're mine," Caroline chimed in.

"Nice to meet you all," Jack said, surveying them all. They appeared to range in age from about eight all the way down to toddler.

John joined them in the kitchen again and said, "Ah, here's your bag, Jack." He handed it to him over the heads of the kids.

"Thanks, John."

"Guys, what are you all doing in the kitchen? You need to give them room to cook or we're never going to eat," John said, picking up one of the twins. Grace? Jack wasn't entirely sure. The other one got jealous and demanded to be picked up as well. "Come on, let's all go... find something else to do." He herded the kids out of the kitchen.

Several comments such as "Let's play dodgeball!" "I want candy!" and "Uncle John, Sydney said a bad word earlier," were audible as the large group left the room.

Emily watched Jack watch them and said, "You get used to the craziness of having that many kids around. Why don't you go get dry and warm, Jack. I suggest you use Sam's room, it's the only one not overrun at the moment."

"Okay. Thanks."

He made his way through the crowded house to Carter's bedroom, which was thankfully empty. He allowed himself a few seconds on the thought that he was about to strip in Carter's bedroom, then a loud crash from upstairs followed by an adult calling, "What was that?" reminded him of the strange circumstances and he quickly peeled off his freezing wet clothes.

He was just pulling on his pants when there was a soft knock on the door. "Hang on a second," he said, doing up the fly quickly.

"It's me," Carter called.

"Oh, come in," he called, rifling through his bag for an undershirt. He found one and stood up, surprised to see that she was looking at him. Not just looking at him, but _looking _at him. Congratulating himself on all the crunches silently, he smiled and said, "Great family, Carter."

"Glad you think so, sir," she said, looking uncomfortable about something. "Um, Emily told me you were in here."

He pulled the undershirt over his head, admittedly a bit slower than necessary, and then grabbed the black sweater he had tossed on her bed and said, "What's with the look?"

"First, I can't thank you enough for helping me, sir. You really saved the day."

"All in a day's work," he said modestly, sitting down on the edge of her bed to pull on his socks. His shoes were wet and would have to wait to dry.

"Umm, the thing is, sir... there's a lot of snow coming down."

"So I hear."

"Well... if you look out the window..."

He did. He swore under his breath and said, "Wow, impressive."

"And it's still coming down. I checked the weather channel, sir... it doesn't look good. I'm really, really sorry about this, sir, but... it looks like you're stuck here."

----------------------------

A/N: More to follow, of course. Thanks for the reviews to everyone who has taken the time.


	5. Holy private joke, Batman!

Ch 5: Holy private joke, Batman!

Jack took in her apprehensive look in surprise. She actually thought he was going to be hating this. Smiling, he said, "Well, then, Carter, it looks like I get to ask the age old question. Is there any room at the inn?"

Laughing, she said, "Yes, sir, we'll be able to squeeze you in somewhere. I'm sorry, it won't be very comfortable, or private..."

"Don't worry about it, Carter," he said with a shrug.

"I'm really sorry," she repeated.

"Hey, look..."

They were interrupted by loud crying coming from the hallway. Carter sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, then opened the door. A three and a half-foot tall Batman was standing there, in tears.

"Rory, what's wrong?" she asked, scooping him up and bringing him into the room. She shut the door behind her to muffle the cries and set him on the edge of the bed, kneeling down in front of him and feeling his arms and legs. "Are you hurt?"

"No," the little boy wailed, throwing his arms around her and crying into her neck. She slid up onto the bed holding him, rubbing his back, and looked like she didn't have a clue what to do.

Jack shrugged his shoulders.

"Okay, then, what happened?" Carter tried finally.

"Matty said I'm not Batman," Rory wailed.

"But sweetie, you know you're not really Batman," Carter argued gently. She looked up at Jack and explained, "Rory dresses up differently every day, don't you Rory?"

He nodded, sniffling. "But he wouldn't even let me pretend," he sobbed.

"Hey Batman?" Jack asked. Rory wiped his eyes with his sleeve and looked up at Jack. "You know what I always liked about Batman? Er... about you, I mean?"

"What?"

"Nobody knows who he really is. Nobody would believe he was Batman. It's a great big secret hardly anybody else knows about."

Rory sniffled and smiled a little bit. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Auntie Sam?" he asked, looking up at her expectantly.

"Yup. That's definitely what makes Batman so cool. He doesn't care that nobody knows what a great hero he is," she said, looking up at Jack pointedly.

Jack shifted on his feet uncomfortably, wishing she would stop with the doe eyes. It was bad enough when the two of them were in uniform... Luckily, Sam turned her attention back to the little boy. "Let's go get you cleaned up, and we'll go see if I can find you a candy cane."

"Just me?"

"Yup. I was keeping them hidden for now, but I think Batman deserves one early." She set him on his feet and took his hand, taking him into the connecting bathroom. They came out a few minutes later. Rory's cheeks were still red from crying, but he looked like he felt a lot better.

"Hey, what about me?" Jack asked them both. "Do I get a candy cane too?"

Sam looked down at Rory. "What do you think?"

He eyed Jack critically, wrinkling his nose, and finally smiled up at her. "Yeah, he gets one too," he decided.

Carter smiled and picked him up, heading downstairs with him. Jack followed, asking, "Isn't Batman a little big to be carried around?"

They both looked at him like he was crazy, so he said, "Okay, guess not. How old are you anyway?"

"Four," Rory informed him, holding out his hand with the fingers splayed for emphasis. "How old are you?"

"A lot older than four," Jack answered while Carter laughed.

They went into the kitchen, where lots of cooking was still going on, but there were two new men in the kitchen Jack hadn't met yet, who had to be Sam's other brothers, as they both looked very much like her father. Anne smiled at them all and said, "Jack, have you met my husband?"

"Ah, no," he said, offering to shake the large man's hand.

"Sorry, Colonel, that's Nigel, my oldest brother," Carter called as she set Rory down on the counter and went into the pantry.

"Nice to finally meet the guy who's responsible for all of us being dry," he said. "And don't worry, I won't judge you based on Mark's report alone," he assured Jack.

Jack looked around, confused, as everyone laughed.

"Neither will I," the other man, smaller but more muscular than his brother, said. "I'm Jamie."

Jack shook his hand as well and looked around in confusion. "What does Mark..." he started to ask.

"What's Mark's problem now?" Carter demanded, coming out of the pantry with two candy canes. She peeled back the wrapping and handed one to Rory absently, looking back and forth between her brothers for an explanation.

"He ah... just had a typical Mark reaction to the way they found you guys this afternoon," Jamie said with a shrug. "No big deal."

Maybe not to the rest of Carter's family, but Jack knew her well enough to know it was a big deal to her. Which made it a big deal to him. But she was so distracted by the conversation she hadn't handed over the candy cane yet. She was gesturing with it as she talked. He followed it with his eyes for a few seconds, his fingers itching to reach out for it. Finally, he could take it no more. He snatched it away quickly and ripped through the cellophane.

"Uncle Jack are you in trouble?" Rory asked around the candy cane sticking out of his mouth.

Carter was obviously just as surprised at his being christened 'uncle' as he was, although he supposed it only made sense to the little boy. The house was jam-packed with adults he was supposed to call 'uncle' or 'aunt.'

Jack turned to Carter in time to see her having some kind of silent exchange with her sister. She glanced at him, their eyes met, and she looked away, blushing.

"Not sure about that, Batman," Jack muttered.

Emily stepped in by saying, "Rory, why don't you show Uncle Jack the play room?"

"Carter, you have a play room?" he asked in surprise.

She blushed as everyone laughed at her. "It was already here when I moved in," she muttered as her nephew hopped off the counter and grabbed Jack's hand, dragging him away.

Rory took him up a narrow staircase on the second floor, all the way up to what had once been the attic but was now a large finished room. Jack immediately spotted an old pool table at the back and smiled. "Well, one mystery solved," he said to himself.

Most of the kids were in this room, which had a large couch and television. A Christmas movie was playing, but nobody was paying it much attention. It was unbelievably loud in the room, full of so many little voices and laughs that it was impossible to distinguish between who was talking and what was being said. Chris was up there as well, taking turns swinging several of the kids around in fast circles.

"Good, backup!" he declared upon spotting Jack.

Jack held up his hands. "Bad knee," he objected, but three of the kids had already ran over to him and were hopping around anxiously, wanting to be picked up and swung around. He sighed and eyed the first kid in the group. "Which one are you? Kieran?"

"Yup," the little boy answered, holding up his arms.

Jack picked him up, groaning slightly. "What do they feed you?" he demanded before doing his duty as a merry-go-round.

"So, you hiding out from my brothers and sisters?" Chris asked casually after the kids were too dizzy to be swung around anymore and the two men collapsed onto the couch, exhausted.

"Umm... not from all of them," Jack offered with a grin.

"Yeah, that's about what I figured. Let me guess. Emily's making you uncomfortable and Mark's giving you a hard time about the wrestling match we walked in on."

"It wasn't really a wrestling match... and your sister is really nice... but basically, yeah."

"That's just how Mark's always been with Sam. Since they're the same age and all, they knew all the same people, so he always knew every guy that tried to... well, I'm guessing you don't want to talk about that," Chris said perceptively.

"Good to see you're doing more than book learning at that college of yours."

Chris laughed and said, "Well, you've discovered the tactic I've been using since I was twelve: stick with the little kids. Their questions are easier to answer."

One of the little girls came over and stopped in front of him. Jack took in the long, curly blond hair, bright blue eyes that clearly ran in the family, and smiled. All of the kids resembled each other, and many of them had some of Carter's traits, but this one looked exactly like her.

"Sydney, right?" Jack asked.

The little girl nodded, breaking into a huge grin, clearly pleased that he'd remembered her name, and said, "Want to color with me?"

"Um, sure," Jack said, watching warily as she grabbed her coloring book, crayons, and spread them all out on the floor. "But can we do it at that table over there? My old knees don't do so well on the floor."

"Sure," Sydney said with a grin, gathering all of her stuff.

Jack sat down next to her and looked at the picture she had picked. "Who's that?"

"Peter Pan. And Tinkerbell. Here, you color Wendy. Her nightgown is blue."

"Yes, ma'am," Jack said obediently, picking out a blue crayon.

She took it from his hand and said, "LIGHT blue."

Chuckling, he swapped crayons and started coloring.

"If you couldn't tell already," Chris called from where he was wrestling with three of the kids, "That one's the mini-Sam."

The little girl in question rolled her eyes and said, "Everybody always says that."

"Is that a bad thing?" Jack asked curiously.

She shrugged. "Nah. Auntie Sam is great but I'm not little! I'm the second oldest here after Matty."

"How old are you?"

"Six. Are you really our uncle?"

"Ah, no."

"That's what I thought, because to be our uncle you would have to have married her and if you had married her we all would have gone to the wedding. How do you know Auntie?"

"We work together."

"In the Air Force?"

"Yup."

"You fly planes?"

"Yup."

She grinned up at him, clearly impressed. "That's so cool!"

"Thanks."

"Auntie doesn't have any kids, does she?"

"No... why?"

"I was looking at her tree earlier. Half of it looks like she did it, the other half looks like ours, when Mommy lets us decorate it ourselves and Rory and the twins just throw their ornaments on wherever they feel like."

Jack laughed and ran his hand through his hair. "Ah, I did that half of the tree thank you very much," he informed her.

Chris laughed from where he was letting himself be pummeled by couch cushions and jumped on by several kids at once. "Oh, you shut up," Jack growled at him.

"Umm, Uncle Jack said shut up!" one of the other little kids, Gwen, he thought, called.

Sydney rolled her eyes. "Babies," she scoffed, inspecting his coloring. "You're doing a good job," she said, patting him on the back with her tiny hand.

"Thanks."

An hour later, he was still coloring with Sydney, who was talking his ear off while they worked. "There you are," Carter said with a smile, wading through all of the kids over to where he and Sydney were still coloring. She picked up a kid along the way and sat down across from them, cuddling a very sleepy looking little girl. "Sorry, we got into a long-standing family debate."

"Hey, that's okay. I've been talking to your little counterpart here."

Sydney grinned at Carter. "He's funny," she said approvingly.

"Yes, he is," Carter said, shifting the little girl on her lap slightly.

"Which one is that again?" Jack asked Sydney quietly.

"Liliana. Everybody calls her Lily though. She's only two," Sydney answered, taking the crayon out of his hand and replacing it with another one. "Ariel's fins are green, not purple," she said firmly.

"Sorry," he apologized. Carter laughed at him, but he didn't care.

"Syddo kiddo, you need to finish up, dinner's ready," Carter told her.

"I'm not done," she said absently. "And it'll take everyone at least fifteen minutes to wash their hands and get downstairs," she said, nodding in the direction of the general mayhem, where Emily, Caroline, and Chris were all now herding the children downstairs, peeling them away from various tasks.

"Anyone ever told you you're too smart for your own good?" Jack asked Sydney curiously.

"Yup. All the time."

"And what do we tell them?" Carter asked her.

"That there's no such thing," Sydney answered happily, grinning at her. Carter grinned back and ruffled her hair.

"Hey, I've got a surprise for you."

"Where?" Sydney asked eagerly.

"The room that Uncle Nigel and Aunt Anne are staying in."

"The one with all the books and stuff?" Sydney asked, starting to gather up her crayons.

"Yeah. One of my computers crashed last month. I saved it for you."

"Really?" she asked excitedly, for all the world as though Carter had just given her a basket full of puppies.

"Yup. You can take it apart after dinner. But to do that, we actually have to go DOWN to dinner."

Sydney rolled her eyes and put away her crayons, slamming the book shut.

"Hey, I wasn't done!" Jack objected.

Sydney giggled and said, "I want to sit by Uncle Jack at dinner."

"Why am I not surprised," Carter muttered to herself. Jack heard her, but didn't let on. "Go wash your hands, Syd," Carter said. Sydney hopped off her chair and hurried off.

"Thanks for humoring her, sir," Carter said sincerely. "With so many kids around, they all like to get a little individual attention whenever they can."

"No problem, Carter. She's fun. Besides, I was wondering what I was going to do, I left my coloring book on base."

She laughed and said, "Yeah, I noticed you seemed to be having a good time."

"What does that mean?" he asked defensively.

"Oh, please, sir. I doubt anybody's ever spent that long coloring a seashell bra..." she said lightly.

He grinned apologetically. Shaking her head, she got up, looking down at Lily, who was sucking her thumb and about to fall asleep, and said, "I don't think this one's going to make it through dinner. I'm going to go find Anne."

"See you at dinner," Jack called.

"Save me a seat," Carter called back.

"I'll save one and let you and Sydney fight over it," he called back. Laughing, Carter left it at that.

A/N: Once again, I am pleased and surprised at the lovely reviews you all have sent. They only make me type faster. Thank you all.


	6. Not exactly 'Home Alone'

Ch 6: Not exactly 'Home Alone'

Dinner was entertaining, by Jack's standards, although at the end of it, Chris clapped him on the back and said, "You got lucky, that was relatively uneventful."

Jack supposed that depended on your definition of uneventful. Conor spilt milk all down his front and then started crying when some of the other kids laughed at him. His dad took him up to get cleaned up and changed, and to keep the other kids from teasing Conor, Jamie started talking about how Nigel was never able to make it through a meal without spilling something as well.

So when Nigel returned with Conor, everyone started laughing again. Once Nigel figured out the reason, he threw a roll across the table at his brother, which the kids took to mean it was okay to throw food. Luckily, a potential food fight was avoided by some serious stern looks from all of the mothers at the table.

Everyone went back to eating and chatting. Lily, the little girl Carter had been carrying, fell asleep right at the table, in the midst of all the commotion.

Chris, Jamie, and Nigel got into an argument over who was responsible for a food fight that had apparently happened years ago and never been resolved to anyone's satisfaction. Several of the children started chanting "Fight, fight, fight," hoping to incite further food throwing.

Emily put a stop to all of it by reminding everyone that it wasn't too late for Santa to change his mind about bringing presents. Sydney, who had been so busy talking to Jack all night that he didn't remember seeing her actually eat a bite of food, said quietly, "Santa had to call Matty in July. To warn him he was on the Naughty list and tell him he better start behaving if he wanted anything this year." Jack laughed. "It was really my dad that called him though. Using a fake voice," she whispered after glancing conspiratorially around.

"Well, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Santa's pretty busy to be making all those personal calls," Jack said.

She looked at him steadily, rolled her eyes in the way he'd always suspected Carter was just itching to do sometimes, and said, "Riiight."

Jack shrugged and applied himself back to his dinner. Should have figured, if the kid was supposed to be just like Carter. And Carter had probably busted the Santa myth by the age of four at the latest, he thought, glancing down the table at her. She was sitting in between Kieran and Gwen, cutting up Kieran's chicken for him.

"Uncle Jack!" Sydney said in a loud voice that demanded attention, putting her hand on his arm.

Unfortunately, she got not only Jack's attention, but the rest of the table's as well. He could feel everyone else looking at him, but when Carter looked over automatically at Sydney's exclamation, he knew she knew he had been staring at her. They both glanced away quickly, but Carter wasn't fast enough to hide the fact that her cheeks were bright red.

Ooookay, Jack thought to himself, turning his attention back to Sydney. Note to self, try not to gawk at 2IC in a room full of her family. If her dad was there, he was fairly certain he'd be in trouble for that one.

"Uncle Jack, I was telling you bout the documentary I saw last week on Animal Planet," Sydney said insistently, sitting up on her knees in her chair.

"Oh, right, about the monkeys," Jack said, taking a giant gulp of water.

"Not monkeys," Sydney insisted. "Ring-tailed Lemurs. And there was a white one. Not albino though, because he had blue eyes, so he was called Sapphire..."

The only thing that made the documentary reenactment slightly better than listening to Daniel go on about rocks all day was the fact that Sydney was so darn cute. Plus he was pretty sure Carter would be impressed with his patience.

After dinner was over, the youngest kids were taken upstairs by their respective moms for baths, leaving Carter's brothers to clean up the mess from dinner. Jack figured it was more than a fair trade-off for the excellent meal, and got up to help them. Carter, he noticed, was edging towards the stairs with Sydney.

"Sam, don't even think about it," Nigel called once he spotted her.

"What?" she asked innocently.

"You didn't cook. You're helping with the dishes."

"I didn't cook because they didn't want my help!" she objected. "It's not like... fine," she grumbled. "I'll be right back. Just have to show Syd something."

She hurried her niece up the stairs and came back down a few minutes later, joining the six men in the kitchen. "You know, it's so crowded in here I don't think you need another hand," Carter started.

Jamie laughed and said, "Nice try, Sammy," before shoving a stack of wet dishes in her arms and disappearing.

"Where's he going?" Chris demanded from where he was scouring a large pan.

"He's helping with the children I think," John assured him. Carter glowered and got to work.

By the time they were all finished in the kitchen, most of the kids were in their pajamas in the living room, which now smelt faintly of soap. Jack noticed the twin girls and Lily were gone already and assumed they'd already been put to bed. Sydney was also nowhere in sight, but judging by how excited she'd been when Carter had mentioned her computer, he had a pretty good idea of where she was.

"Carter, where do all these kids sleep?" he asked curiously as several of the adults booted them out of prime seating spots.

"The older ones sleep in that game room you were in. The couch in there folds out and we've got a bunch of sleeping bags. The littler ones usually stay with their parents. I know Grace and Kailey are, and I think Lily and maybe Piper are as well."

"Sounds like a finely honed system," he commented.

She nodded and was about to reply, but Rory hurried over to them carrying Jack's coat, which was ringing.

"Somebody's calling you, Uncle Jack," he said, handing it to him.

"Thanks," Jack said, fumbling in the pockets for the phone quickly. "O'Neill," he said into the phone, shrugging at Carter's curious expression.

"Jack, Merry Christmas," General Hammond said over the phone.

"General, hi. No emergencies on base, I hope," Jack said quietly, taking the phone into the next room so he could hear better.

"No, no, nothing like that. Just with the weather and all, I was wondering if you're going to try to make it tomorrow for dinner. There's a lot of snow, I know, but you've got that big truck..."

"Actually, I won't be able to make it, sir, but thank you very much for inviting me," Jack said, wincing and hoping the General wouldn't pry to much. It just wouldn't look very good.

"No problem, Jack, enjoy your holiday. You got a better offer then, I take it?"

"No, sir, not at all. Actually, it's kind of funny..." he started cautiously.

"Uncle Jack, come on, we're going to watch a Christmas movie now!" Julia said loudly, running into the room and grabbing his hand, trying to drag him but of course having no success.

"Hang on a second," Jack said, holding the phone away from his mouth. "You can start it without me," he told the little girl, who looked mortified at the very thought.

"But it's 'Home Alone!'" she argued. Jack could hear General Hammond laughing on the other end of the phone.

That is, until Carter came into the room and Julia said (loud enough to be heard on P2X545, Jack was positive), "Aunt Sam, he's not coming. Maybe if you drag his other arm..."

"Julia, he's talking to our boss, it could be about something very important," Carter said quietly to her, pulling her off Jack. "I'm sure he'll be able to figure out the movie if we go ahead and start it now."

Julia sighed and went back into the living room. Jack held out the cell phone, pointing it at Carter, so she could hear General Hammond yelling, as if she couldn't already. Wincing, she mouthed, "Sorry," and hurried back into the living room before he could object, leaving him all alone to deal with a no-doubt red-faced General who was not too happy with him at the moment.

"General, please, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this," Jack finally said, once the General had to stop ranting about proper behavior and regulations long enough to catch his breath.

"I am, as they say, all ears, UNCLE Jack," Hammond said evenly.

"Right. Well, see, Carter's family's in for the holiday, obviously, and this morning when she got up a pipe had burst in her basement, so I came over to try to help her get it under control before they all got here, and by the time we had it fixed, her whole family was here and so was about a foot and a half of snow. I know what you're thinking, I could've made it home in that much snow in the truck, but see, she's got a whole bunch of brothers and sisters I didn't know about, so there are four cars parked behind me that can't be backed out. Sir."

He stopped, holding his breath, wondering if the General was going to buy it. It was the truth of course, but ever since the zay'tarc incident, Jack had been worried that his every waking thought was under scrutiny and he was about a quarter inch away from a court martial.

"All right, Jack. I know I overreacted just now, but you have to understand..."

"I do, sir. I know that sounded bad. But you have to know that I would never do anything to jeopardize my position at the SGC, sir. I know how important SG-1 is to the planet's defense and..."

"You can save that speech, Jack, because honestly, I'm not so sure about you anymore, but I do know Major Carter, so I'm not worried."

"Yes, sir. And, ah, just in case you had any lingering doubts... keep in mind there are about twenty chaperones here."

General Hammond laughed and said, "Enjoy your holiday, Jack."

"Thank you sir, you too."

"And tell Major Carter 'Merry Christmas' for me as well, and make sure she knows that I'm not upset."

"Yes, sir."

Jack closed his phone, staring at it in relief and mild surprise. General Hammond didn't trust him not to... but he did trust Carter, huh. Interesting. And probably pretty smart, too, Jack decided. He was still collecting his thoughts when Carter poked her head back into the kitchen, biting her lip nervously.

"Relax. I explained the situation and he understood completely," he said, pocketing his phone.

"He did?" she asked, looking surprised.

"Yup. And wanted me to tell you Merry Christmas."

"Wow. That was nice. So there's no emergency on base or anything..."

"No, he was just calling about tomorrow, seeing if I was going to try and come in all the snow."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

They stared at each other for a few moments, Jack still thinking about what the General had said. Finally, Carter cleared her throat and said, "Popcorn."

"Huh?" Jack asked.

"Popcorn. I'm supposed to make popcorn," she said, going over to her pantry.

"Oh." He watched her grab a box of microwaveable popcorn and pull out several prewrapped bags. "That's a lot of popcorn," he commented.

She smiled and said, "There are a lot of people in there."

"Yes there are," he agreed, watching her pop the bag into the microwave and hit a few buttons. The microwave came to life and he said, "I didn't know you knew how to make popcorn."

"Very funny, Colonel."

"Thank you, Carter," he said, hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels slightly.

"You know, most of the people in there are Carters. Except for John and their kids."

"Astute observation, Major-Doctor. What's your point?"

"Nevermind," she said quickly, busying herself by opening several cabinets and gathering several different bowls to put all the popcorn in. He watched her curiously, thinking hard.

It finally hit him. Was that an invitation to call her 'Sam?' Nah, it couldn't have been. She was the one who kept throwing 'sirs' around and wouldn't call him anything other than Colonel, except for that one time when she had that damn snake in her brain. Frowning at the unpleasant memory, he searched the room for something to clear his brain.

"Um, drinks?" he asked.

"Sir?"

"You need drinks with popcorn, right? Want me to get them?"

She smiled and said, "I should probably do that, sir."

"I can do it, I want to help."

"Thank you. But do you know what everybody in there wants?"

"Well, no but how hard could it be?"

She pulled out a large tray, set it on the counter, and said, "All right. Emily, Chris, and I will want Dr. Pepper, but I want diet and Chris will want a lime in his. John will take water, Jamie will want Coke, Caroline will want Coke but can't have it because of the caffeine because she's pregnant, so she'll want diet cherry 7 up. Mark likes Vanilla Coke, Anne likes Sprite, Nigel will want tea, but I'll have to make more because we finished it at dinner, and Karen will want seltzer water. Now, all of the kids will be begging for soda if they see all that, so we've got to put all the drinks in cups with ice, collect all their sippy cups, and give them milk, water, or juice. Sydney and Piper are allergic to milk, so Piper will drink chocolate soy milk, but Sydney hates it. And Conor can't have apple juice this late at night or he'll wet the bed, and then wake everybody sleeping on that sofa bed upstairs up, and they won't be happy campers, to say the least, so..."

"So I'll make the popcorn," Jack interrupted, holding his head as if he had a terrible headache.

Carter smiled and said, "Good plan, sir."

"Stop with the sir."

"Sorry."

Fifteen minutes later, they took the tray of drinks and several bowls of popcorn into the living room. Everything was distributed, and Carter found she had two extra drinks. Doing a quick survey, she asked, "Where are Mark and Karen?"

Gwen giggled and pointed to the far entrance to the living room. "Oh brother," Carter muttered under her breath. Jack followed her eyes and swallowed hard, as Carter's twin brother and his wife were making out like teenagers under a sprig of mistletoe. Nobody else seemed to find anything unusual about it, but Jamie did say, "All right, break it up, you two, we're ready to start the movie."

They separated immediately, and Karen came over and claimed the last large, empty chair, but Mark pulled the mistletoe off the frame and disappeared with it. "Umm, Carter, what..."

"It's a stupid family tradition," Carter explained, sitting down on the crowded couch next to Rory and sliding him onto her lap so Jack would have room to sit down.

'Room to sit down,' in the crowded Carter household, meant that he was sitting so close to Carter he thought he might be smashing her against the arm rest of the couch, but she seemed perfectly comfortable, despite the child who was obviously making himself comfortable in her lap, settling down for the long haul apparently. Jack wasn't about to complain about the seating arrangements.

"It's not stupid, Sam, it's tradition," Emily scolded mildly, picking up the remote and pressing Play so that the movie started. There was a chorus of cheers from the kids, and from Chris and Nigel as well. "It's just something we started doing a long time ago, Jack," Emily explained to him. "After you get caught under the mistletoe, you get to move it to another location. Then the next people that get caught move it again."

"Anywhere they want?" he asked curiously.

"Yes," Emily answered, the same time four other people told him the exact opposite.

She smiled and explained, "We had to modify the rules when Sam was eighteen."

"Emily!" Carter said quickly, looking at her sister pointedly.

"Oh, relax, Sam, it's a funny story," Emily said dismissively, turning her attention back to Jack. "She had brought a boyfriend home from college and Chris, who was about seven at the time, I believe, kept moving it around because she got so embarrassed when they had to kiss in front of everybody."

Jack grinned at Carter, who was blushing like mad and refusing to look at him. She whispered something to Rory, who giggled and said, "Auntie said you're evil, Mommy."

Emily just rolled her eyes and continued her story. "So, Sam's solution to the problem was to 'relocate' the mistletoe to the garbage. At which point we had to impose a few rules for future years."

"So it can't be thrown away, obviously, and it has to be hung somewhere that's above the tallest person's head," Chris explained.

"Shh, the movie's starting!" Matty objected. Everyone got obediently quiet. Mark soon returned and shared the big chair with his wife. Jack looked down at the floor in front of the coffee table, where most of the kids who were still up were stretched out side by side on their tummies, chins propped up on elbows, bowls of popcorn and sippy cups between them. He thought they looked like sardines. Really adorable sardines. In footy pajamas and nightgowns.

Rory caught his attention, because he was squirming around in Carter's lap, trying to get comfortable. He settled finally, at an angle where he was half-facing Jack, half looking at the TV, his feet dangling over into his lap. "Hey, who are you going to be tomorrow?" Jack asked him curiously.

"Me," Rory answered, as though it was the most ridiculous question ever.

"Oh. I thought you dressed up every day."

"Every day but Christmas. On Christmas I gotta be me, or how else would Santa know who to give the presents to?" he asked evenly.

"Ah, good point," Jack conceded.

"SHH!" Matty scolded again.

"Matty," his mother warned. "You've seen this a hundred times, relax."

As far as children's movies went, Jack had to admit this one was pretty decent. It did make him laugh out loud a few times, and it wasn't too bad. He wondered what Carter thought of it. He had never pictured her in this type of situation. She was great with Cassie, of course, but Cassie was older, and past the stage where she wanted to watch silly movies with adults and fall asleep in their laps. He had always figured that she was so smart she would be bored to death in a setting like this.

She seemed to be having a pretty good time though, and he finally had to stop glancing sideways at her because the last time he did, she had been smelling Rory's damp hair. The look on her face and the comfortable, sleepy looking adorable boy on her lap (who looked like the definition of content snuggling with her) had made it very difficult for him to restrain himself from displacing the kid and dragging her all over the house until they found that damn mistletoe.

That thought, combined with General Hammond's earlier warning, scared him enough into staring straight at the screen, although he was no longer paying any attention to the movie.

Until Emily quietly said, "Rory, thumb." He glanced to his side and saw that Rory was barely awake, blinking very slowly, with his thumb in his mouth. A small puddle of drool was forming on Carter's chest, but she didn't seem to mind. Rory was too sleepy and comfortable to make his hand obey his mom.

Smiling at him fondly from across the room, Emily said, "Sammy, get his thumb please." Carter gently tugged the little boy's hand away from his mouth, squeezed it lightly, and let go. He wrapped his tiny arm around her neck, snuggled even closer to her, and closed his eyes, down for the count.

By the time the movie was over, he wasn't the only one. A few of the kids were asleep, and most of them looked close to it. They were rounded up gently and led or carried upstairs, Carter leaving with Rory since he was already attached to her. Chris and Jack were left alone with Mark, who had fallen asleep as well in his chair. Chris fixed that by tossing a throw pillow at him. Mark jerked awake, looked around in confusion, and said, "Kids gone to bed?"

"Yeah. You joining them?"

"No way. I'll go make the coffee," he said, getting up, stretching, and going into the kitchen.

"Coffee?" Jack asked Chris.

"Um, yeah, since we're all together, we tend to sleep as little as possible on weekends like this. I'm sure nobody would mind if you wanted to go to bed now though... speaking of which, where are you sleeping?"

"I'm not sure."

"Well, I'm sure Sam's got a plan. I hope for your sake she's not putting you with me. I'm in with the kids. They get up wicked early for presents."

"I'm used to getting up early and little sleep. I'm sure I'll survive."

"Good."

Mark called out to them, "If I were you guys I'd come get some coffee before the pack attacks."

Chris grinned and offered Jack a hand up, clapping him on the back on their way into the kitchen. "Don't bother avoiding Mark. He's really a teddy bear. He and Sam area lot alike, he's just giving you a hard time since Dad's not around."

There were so many things Jack wanted time to ponder about that statement, but he didn't have time, as he was ushered into the kitchen and soon found himself drinking coffee with Chris and Mark. "Um, look, Mark," Jack started, feeling the need to say something to the man and not counting on being so close to alone with him again. "I'm sorry you're uncomfortable with me being here, but I assure you, I am your sister's Commanding Officer and friend. That's all."

Mark looked surprised and impressed that Jack had confronted him directly. Finally, he shook his head slightly, set down his coffee cup, and smiled briefly at Jack. "Then I'm sorry too," he said sincerely. "Not for giving you a hard time, that's my job. But I'm sorry if that's all you really are to each other, because it's perfectly obvious to anybody with eyes that there's..."

Several more members of the Carter family, including his 2IC, filed into the kitchen. Mark stopped talking abruptly and Chris loudly said, "Coffee, anyone!" to cover for the awkward silence.

Jack and Mark exchanged significant looks. Jack finally nodded at him, deciding he quite liked Carter's twin brother.

After everyone had access to coffee, Jamie clapped his hands together and said, "All right, what will it be this year?"

Jack turned to Carter automatically for an explanation. "We always play a board game on Christmas eve," she explained.

"Why?" he asked curiously.

"I have no idea. We played a lot when we were younger, but now it's just... something we always do on Christmas eve."

"RISK!" Chris said loudly. A chorus of support and objections started.

"We all know who will win if we play Risk, where's the fun in that?" Emily asked fairly.

"We don't KNOW Sam will win," Chris argued.

"Hey! I'm undefeated!" Carter objected.

"Oh no you're not," Mark insisted. "Dad and I beat you once."

"That game did NOT count!" Carter argued.

"Oh, not again," Emily muttered quietly.

Carter turned to Jack and explained, "We played a game in 1981 that didn't count."

"It did so count," Mark and Nigel said at the same time.

"Why didn't it count?" Jack wanted to know.

"Because I had a broken right arm, so it was in a cast and I had to roll with my left hand, so my rolling was off," she said matter-of-factly.

He broke into a grin.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"Nothing," he said, holding up his hands quickly.

"And you know that game didn't count," she said to Mark. "And Dad told you not to bring it up again."

"And yet, every time we play Risk it gets brought up," Emily said. "Not to mention we have never played that game without some sort of... incident."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Carter said evenly.

"Oh really," Emily challenged. "Do I need to bring up what happened when we played at the lake? Dad had to drive forty miles to the nearest hospital with Jamie screaming his head off in the backseat the entire time."

"That was an accident!" Carter and Mark insisted simultaneously.

"Okay, I have to hear this story," Jack said, grinning at his 2IC, who crossed her arms defiantly and glared at her sister.

"That was an accident, Emily, and you know it," she said evenly.

"Maybe," Emily conceded. "But if you guys hadn't jumped Jamie it wouldn't have happened, would it?"

"No," they both admitted.

Emily turned to Jack and said, "There was a dispute over... Irkutsk, wasn't it?" she asked, looking at Nigel for confirmation. He nodded. She continued. "Mark and Sam were on a team, and when they couldn't agree with Nigel, they both jumped on him, a huge wrestling match started, the board went flying, the pieces went flying, and somehow in all the scuffle, Jamie got an X lodged up his nose."

Jack turned to Carter slowly. She shrugged sheepishly. "Accident," she repeated.

"Accident my ass," Jamie put in. "You weren't the one with that thing shoved so far up your nose it was practically in your brain. The doctor had to stick that alligator clamp way up there and... it wasn't fun."

Mark snorted, trying not to laugh. Jack shook his head.

"Anyway, I was injured during that whole thing as well," Carter insisted.

"Oh you got a carpet burn, big deal," Jamie said grumpily. "Go get the board." He and Carter exchanged silent challenges and she took off. Caroline waddled after her, saying she was very tired and wanted to go ahead and go to sleep as well.

"How exactly do you play Risk with this many people?" Jack asked curiously.

"Teams," Chris answered. "You can be with Sam."

"Now wait a minute, that's really not fair," Nigel argued. "I mean they're both Air Force, we don't need that kind of strategy to fight against. He might actually be able to beat her."

"Or they'd just both figure out each other's strategies and cancel each other out. Come on, we can't make him be with someone else. Jack, you're with Sam," Chris said firmly, silently daring his brother to raise any more objections.

"This is a mistake," Emily muttered quietly. "There's too much snow for an ambulance to get to us."

Jack laughed at that, and followed them all into the living room to play Risk.


	7. Risky Business without Tom Cruise

Ch 7: Risky Business (without Tom Cruise)

Jack had never played a board game like the Carter family played board games. Her brothers played dirty, trying to influence other players' decisions and form illegal alliances that would be turned on whenever they felt like it. It made the game much more interesting and funny, especially to Jack, who would never have guessed grown men and women, especially Carter, could get that into a game.

Then again, it _was_ a game of world domination. And Carter was so good at it he briefly entertained the thought of warning General Hammond Carter might be secretly harboring a plan to take over Earth once she got the chance.

Then again, this game was practically made for them. One of the funniest parts of the game was watching her brothers argue with their own team members over which country they should attack, and from where, and where they should put their armies. Jack and Carter, of course, could easily see the best strategy in each circumstance, and had no trouble agreeing on tactics without even discussing them.

Nigel and Anne were the first team completely knocked out. Anne looked relieved, and got up with a muffled yawn, stating she was going to check on the kids and then go to bed. Karen got up gratefully and said, "I'm going to do the same. Nigel, why don't you take over on Mark's team for me."

"Excellent. The world will not stand a chance," Mark said, scooting over to make room for his brother. As the two women started to leave, Mark elbowed his brother lightly and called to Karen, "Oh, darling..."

They both stopped, turned around, and Karen said, "What?"

"Look up."

Rolling her eyes because she knew what she'd find, she looked up at the mistletoe. Anne did the same. Rolling their eyes, they pecked each other on the cheek. Anne grabbed the mistletoe and they disappeared.

Everyone went back to the game, but Anne soon rejoined the group, leading Sydney by the hand. "Look what I found in our room," she said, putting her hand on the little girl's head.

Jack recognized the sheepish look on the little girl's face at once: it was the same one he always received when he caught Carter in her lab early in the morning after she pulled an unauthorized all-nighter.

"Sydney, what on earth are you still doing up?" Emily demanded.

She shrugged, put on an adorably innocent face, and said, "Nobody came to get me for bed."

Emily and John looked at each other in surprise. "I thought you were getting her," they said at the same time. They smiled sheepishly and turned to their daughter.

"We're sorry, Syd, but you had to know you were staying up way past your bedtime," Emily said reasonably. "Come on."

"What are you guys playing?" she asked curiously, coming over to stand next to Carter.

"Have fun?" Carter asked her quietly.

Sydney beamed up at her and nodded. "I found the busted part. Sound card is fried," she told her proudly.

Emily groaned while Carter pulled her into a big hug, clearly proud of her little minion.

"Okay, okay, time to go to bed," Emily told her firmly.

"But I'm really hungry," Sydney objected.

"We're not falling for that one tonight, Syd," her dad said.

"But I really am," she insisted.

"Um, she didn't eat hardly anything at dinner," Jack put in.

She grinned at him and said, "See? Told you."

"All right. I'll fix you a sandwich, and then you're going to bed," her mother said firmly, shaking her head to herself as she got up and went into the kitchen.

Chris went back to his battle for China against Nigel and Mark.

"Thanks, Uncle Jack," Sydney said, hugging Carter's arm and leaning into her side.

"Anytime."

"Auntie, how do you play this game?" she asked.

"Well, it's complicated," Carter said, pulling her onto her lap so she could explain it quietly and the game could continue as normal.

Jack listened to the explanation of the game, not sure how a six year-old, no matter how smart she obviously was, was going to be able to understand the game. His mind was quickly changed when their turn came round and Carter said, "So, Syddo Kiddo, what do you think we should do?"

Sydney studied the board and pointed out the right move, looking up at them both to see if it was right. Carter grinned at her and nodded.

"Smart girl," she said, passing the white dice to John.

He took them and said solemnly, "You've poisoned my own daughter's mind against me." Sydney giggled and handed the red dice to Jack.

"You give it a try," Jack insisted, handing them back to her. She rolled them one at a time since three dice wouldn't fit in her little hands. It made their turn take much longer, but he didn't really care. He liked watching Carter interact with all of her nieces and nephews, but she and Sydney especially seemed to be on the same wavelength.

Jack thought Sydney looked like a different person than when he had met her. She had been dressed like a typical tomboy earlier. Her long, curly light blond hair had been pulled up into a ponytail and she had been wearing jeans and a big sweatshirt all day. Now that she was ready for bed, she looked like a little doll. Her hair was down and loose, she was barefoot, and wearing a white nightgown with little pink flowers on it. Her expression was still very serious as she thought about the game, but she looked so girly that he had to wonder about Carter too, not only when she was a kid but now as well.

He knew she dressed girly sometimes but he hadn't really seen it much; when she went out with the rest of SG-1 she always looked great, but she always wore pants. He had a vague memory of her in a skirt at Daniel's "wake," but he had been so out of it at the time he wasn't entirely sure that was accurate. And she'd probably have the Doc do a bunch of painful tests on him if he ever asked her about it.

His wandering mind was stopped by Emily reaching across him to hand Sydney her sandwich. "That smells awful, what is that?" he demanded.

Sydney laughed and said, "Creamy peanut butter, pickles, and Cheetos, want to try it?"

"No, thank you," he said quickly, turning his attention back to the game.

Sydney sure was taking her time with her sandwich, he noticed some time later. One glance at Carter and he knew she was intentionally ignoring that fact. Emily ignored it for a while as well, but finally said, "Okay, Syddo, five more minutes."

"Ten," Sydney pleaded.

"Seven," her mom conceded. "And you can't be bragging to the other kids tomorrow that you stayed up so late."

"And I won't mention anything bout Santa not being real either," Sydney said around a mouthful of sandwich.

"Good," John said.

Promptly seven minutes later, Emily took the empty plate from her daughter and waited for her to say goodnight to everyone. She certainly took her time about it, hugging and kissing everyone on the cheek, starting with Carter and Jack and then moving around the table at the pace of a three-toed sloth. "All right, all right, all right," John finally scolded mildly, shooing her away.

Jack watched Carter smiling after the little girl as she disappeared. Chris nudged his arm, holding out the dice to him impatiently. "I'm attacking you."

"Oh, right," he said, taking the dice he was offered and rolling them mechanically.

"Wait, you can't do that," Carter objected as Jack started taking off two of their armies.

"What are you talking about?" Chris asked, starting to roll the dice again.

She grabbed his hand to stop him and said, "You've got three armies. You can only roll two dice."

"You've got more armies than me," Chris argued.

"So?"

"So, when you're attacking from a disadvantage, you get three dice when you have three armies."

"Since when?"

"Since always, Sam..."

"That is so not the rule. We've never done that before..."

"Well it's not exactly every day you attack someone at a distinct disadvantage," Chris countered.

"Maybe not for you," Jack said quietly, hoping it would amuse Carter and stop the budding argument. She flashed him a smile for the remark, but quickly returned her attention to her brother.

"Chris, that is not the rule and you know it. Look it up."

"We lost the rules years ago," Jamie said. "But I think Sam's right, Chris."

"There, see?" Carter said, crossing her arms.

"I don't know, it makes sense," Mark put in. "I think Chris's right."

"Me too," Nigel agreed.

"I'm with Sam, I don't remember this ever coming up before but it doesn't make sense," Emily said.

After that, Jack had trouble deciphering who was saying what, as everyone started talking at once, all trying to talk over each other. Carter and Chris got to their feet, squaring off across the table. Carter told Chris she'd go look up the rules on the Internet right then and there, and picked up her coffee cup angrily to take a sip. Chris pretended to think she was about to throw it at him and ducked dramatically behind Emily and John. Jack tugged Carter back to a sitting position, trying hard not to laugh.

As the argument continued, Emily said, "I was under the impression all the children were in bed already. Come on, guys, it's Christmas. AND we have a guest. We don't want him witnessing the insanity firsthand, do we?"

"Oh, he's been here long enough to see it all," Jamie said dismissively.

"Okay, everyone, it's getting late and we do still need to bring all the presents down here and everything," Emily reasoned. "Let's come up with some sort of compromise you can both be happy with."

Carter and Chris grumbled unintelligibly. Amused, Jack said, "Carter, why don't we let him use three this time, but from now on that rule doesn't apply."

"Fine. As long as everyone realizes Chris is cheating, and therefore if by some miracle he should manage to win, it won't really count."

"Oh whatever, Sam..." Chris started.

"Chris," Emily said evenly in her mom-voice. Jack had the suspicion, as the large college student lowered his eyes and nodded his assent quietly, that she had perfected that mom-voice long before actually having children of her own. Then again, as the oldest of the Carter family, he figured it had probably been necessary.

After the game finally ended (he and Carter were now co-rulers of the world,) Jack helped everyone bring down all the kids' gifts and put them under and around the tree. He thought about the gift he had for Carter in his truck, riding in the backseat next to Daniel's, Teal'c's, Cassie's, and Janet's gifts.

They were supposed to go over to Janet's house on New Year's Eve and exchange gifts, but he could always get her something else to give to her then. A glance out the window put that train of thought on hold, at least for the time being, as he saw that it was _still _snowing, and he didn't really feel like going out in a semi-blizzard at the moment.

Once all the gifts were arranged and accounted for, everyone said goodnight and headed off to bed. Jack, still unsure of where he was supposed to be sleeping, waited in the middle of the living room while Carter hugged everybody goodnight. She turned to him, seemed puzzled for a moment, and then said, "Oh, right. Sorry, Colonel, you need a place to sleep, don't you."

"Yeah. What about you?"

"Oh, I'll probably grab a sleeping bag with Chris and the kids," she said dismissively, going over to a hall closet, rummaging in it for a few seconds, and producing a heavy, soft looking blanket and a pillow.

"You got kicked out of your own bedroom?" he asked curiously.

"Not kicked out... I gave it to Emily and John, because they have the twins with them and it's the biggest bed."

"That was nice of you."

She shrugged and looked at him as if trying to decide something important. He had no idea what she was thinking about but was getting decidedly uncomfortable the longer she looked at him. Finally, she said, "Get your coat."

"You're kicking me out after I backed you in the Risk debate?" he asked teasingly.

She rolled her eyes and said, "I have something to show you. Get your coat," she repeated, going over to the coat closet and grabbing her own. She pulled it on, stuck her feet in a pair of shoes, and looked at him impatiently.

He realized he was still standing there, probably doing a pretty decent "Daniel is confused" imitation with his mouth hanging open, so he followed her to the closet and obediently put on his coat.

He followed her outside and they waded through knee-deep snow. Jack shivered uncontrollably, wondering if she had finally cracked for good. She led him around the far side of her garage and he was surprised to see a spiral staircase he'd never spotted before. "It's a little cold for stargazing, Carter," he called as she headed up the stairs.

"Funny, sir. And don't touch the rail, your hand might get stuck," she called over her shoulder.

He shrugged and followed her up the stairs. She opened the door at the top, stepped inside, and flicked on a light. Jack looked around him and smiled appreciatively. "Now that's more like it."


	8. Top Gun

Ch 8: Top Gun

"Colonel?" Carter asked, turning to him in confusion. He was surveying the room intently, and hadn't said anything beyond his initial comment: 'That's more like it.'

Jack looked around the large room, which was basically a studio apartment above the garage. Several desks formed a large L shape in one corner, and a quick glance identified three computers among the clutter of paper and such. A mini-fridge was hooked up within rolling chair reach of the desks, and a microwave was balanced on top of it. A coffee pot was stacked on top of that, and there was a sink next to it as well.

There was a TV in the living room area of the room, as well as a light green couch and chair. The coffee table was appropriately covered with coffee cups, file folders, and several books with titles so long they gave Jack a headache from all the way across the room. In the far corner of the room was a closed wardrobe and a twin bed, made up with military precision; the only tidy thing in the room. A door near the bed made him suspect there was also a bathroom up here.

"So, Carter, is this your nest, or what?" Jack finally asked.

Blushing slightly, she hurried over to the coffee table and started gathering cups. "Sorry about the mess, I wasn't expecting anybody to be in here," she said quickly, dumping them all in the sink. He watched her, amused, until she finally turned to him and shrugged. "I thought you might like the privacy. No risk of any of the kids waking you up at five out here," she explained. "Of course, if you'd rather go back in the house, we can..."

"No," he said quickly. She looked at him inquisitively so he elaborated. "What I meant when I came in was... this place seems much more like you than your house does."

She looked surprised. "Well... to be honest, sir, I don't spend a lot of time in the house. I mean, I spend most of my time on base, but when I am home I do tend to spend a lot of time up here. I don't know, I felt weird about changing things in my dad's house, because it's my dad's, you know... but..." she smiled sheepishly and nodded at the bed. "I finally dragged that out here after I realized I'd spent a lot of nights on that couch."

"Well, there's another Carter mystery solved," he said, smiling at her.

"What do you mean?"

"First the pool table in the 'play room,' now this... it's all starting to make sense now."

She laughed and said, "So, you're welcome to watch any of the DVDs under there, or go right to sleep... if you want to use the computer, please use that one on the far right, there's ah... important stuff on the other two."

"I resent the implication I cannot be trusted around a computer," he said, pretending to be hurt.

"Really? Remind me again... who was it who got busted by General Hammond for taking their last computer to the shooting range two months ago? Was it you or Daniel?"

"All right, all right," he grumbled. "So, what, you're just leaving me out here?"

"Well, sir I..."

"Come on, you'd rather go sleep on the floor in a room full of bed-wetters that get up at the crack of dawn than stay in this nicely cluttered room here?"

"Well..." she faltered, and he knew he had won.

Grinning triumphantly, he said, "Good. I'll take the couch. It looks comfy."

"All right. But I still have to set an alarm and get up early to go back over for the present-opening, or everyone will be looking for me and... they'd never let me hear the end of it if they found us up here."

"And Mark would try to kill me," Jack added.

"Probably," Carter agreed, laughing.

"All right then, Carter, what movies do you have here?"

The only one they could both agree on was "Top Gun," so they took turns getting prepared for bed in the small bathroom and sat down on the couch together to watch it. Carter skipped through the previews at the beginning and glanced at him. "There's drinks in that fridge if you want anything."

"Thanks. I'm good for now."

She nodded, looking slightly nervous all of a sudden. Unable to resist the temptation to make her even more nervous, he propped his feet up on the coffee table, reclined back into the cushions comfortably, and said, "Remind me to thank Danny boy."

"For what?" she asked curiously.

"I'm still not sure why he lied about agreeing to help you. But I'm glad he did, or I wouldn't be here," he said quietly with the intense puppy eyes. It worked. She was definitely unsettled. Congratulating himself and suppressing a smile, he turned his attention to the television.

As the movie started, Jack stifled a yawn and realized he was actually quite tired, despite all the coffee. Carter scoffed at something, so he looked down the couch at her and asked, "What?"

"There are so many mistakes in this movie, it's just irritating," she said, pointing at the screen. "I mean, okay, theoretically those two aircraft could be canopy to canopy like that, but come on, sir. In 1986 the F-14 had a TF30-P414 engine. The Number 4 ½ bearing in the TF30-P414 engine didn't have a return pump for the oil, so of course the F-14 was unable to sustain an inverted state more than two minutes. In the length of time it would take to get the aircraft into position, the engine would already have failed. Not to mention the fact that the way this scene is shot it's perfectly obvious the F-5 is the craft that is _actually _inverted."

"Carter," he said pointedly.

"What?" she asked defensively. "Don't even try to pretend like you didn't know that."

"That's not the point, Carter. It's a _movie, _forcryinoutloud. Meant to be entertaining. Not picked apart."

"It wouldn't have been that hard for them to get it right..."

"Carter. Of course this movie is full of technical mistakes. It's not about the planes. It's about the people," he explained impatiently.

She looked at him in surprise. "So... if it's not about the planes, why do you like it, sir?" she asked with a big grin.

"Umm..." Searching for a way out of the hole he seemed to have dug himself into, he said, "Well, to be honest, Carter, for me it's always been about the volleyball scene."

She laughed for nearly a full minute while he grinned smugly. Finally, wiping her eyes, she said, "Finally, something we have in common."

He chuckled and shook his head, turning his attention back to the movie. "No more pointing out the errors, okay, Carter?"

"I'll try to restrain myself," she said dryly, getting up to get herself a drink from the fridge.

Knowing it would make her uncomfortable, he turned to her with an immature grin during the love scene. Once she sensed he was looking at her, she glanced at him quickly, turning immediately back to the television. Then she said, very quickly, "You know, Colonel, they filmed this scene after test screening, because viewers said they wanted a love scene between them. But Kelly McGillis had already dyed her hair darker for another film, so they used the blue lights to hide it."

"Is that true?" he asked, genuinely curious.

She nodded. "Daniel told me."

"You watched Top Gun with Daniel?"

"He gave it to me," she said absently. "Brought it over when I was stuck here with my arm in that damn sling."

"Daniel's... been up here then?" he asked carefully, not quite sure why that bothered him. He knew there was nothing romantic between the two science twins (although he had to admit, he had been suspicious in the early days of the formation of SG1.) He had just enjoyed discovering Carter's little "nest" and quite liked the idea that it was a sort of secret.

Carter, he realized, hadn't answered his question. In fact, she had pretended to be fascinated by the movie once again. "Carter?" he asked pointedly.

"Um, well... okay, but please don't freak out, okay? And don't tell Daniel I told you..."

"What?" he asked, shifting to face her on the couch. It had been a casual question, he hadn't expected to get anything useful out of it.

"Umm... you know how... sometimes... you and General Hammond get... worried about us working too hard. And sometimes it's when we're doing something really important, but you make us leave anyway, so... sometimes... we come here. And keep... working."

She directed this confession to the soda can in her hands rather than directly at him. He watched her for several moments, absorbing that revelation. When he didn't say anything, she glanced at him, biting her lip, trying to gauge how mad he was going to be.

He surprised both of them by shaking his head and smiling. "I guess I should be surprised by that, Carter, but shockingly, I'm not."

"You're not?"

"Nope. Let's just watch the movie, huh?"

"Yes, sir," she said quietly, turning her attention back to the screen.

He jerked awake as he heard something crash, followed by Carter swearing. It took a moment for him to realize that he had fallen asleep during the movie, which was still playing as a matter of fact. He looked around and saw Carter crawling out from underneath her desk, dragging an open box.

"What are you doing?" he asked curiously, sitting up straight on the couch so he could look over at her. The box was full of miscellaneous computer parts.

"I know I have an extra sound card in here somewhere. If I can find it, Syd can hook it up tomorrow," she said absently, rummaging through the box.

"If you have an extra sound card already, why didn't you just fix it yourself?" he asked curiously.

"Because it's something easy she could do and I knew she was coming. Why?"

"Just curious," he said, grabbing the drink off the coffee table and finishing it off. He remembered it was hers and set it back down, glancing at her to see if she had noticed. She wasn't paying him any attention, luckily.

"The snow's stopped," Jack commented suddenly, looking out the window. She glanced at the nearest window as well and nodded, shoving the box back under the table in frustration.

"I was sure it was in there."

"Hey, come watch the rest of the movie."

"You were asleep. At least I could hear it over here."

He glanced at the movie and said, "I was only asleep for fifteen minutes or so. Come on. You can look for your doohickey tomorrow."

She sighed and got up, coming back over to the couch and flopping back down in her previous spot. She picked up her soda and frowned, then glanced at him suspiciously. He was studiously not looking at her, which she apparently took as an admission of guilt, because she wacked him with a throw pillow as she got up to go get a fresh one.

"Assault! Assaulting a superior officer!" he called, as if waiting for invisible forces to swarm the room and take his 2IC into custody. "That'll get you a court martial, Major!" he called after her.

She came back with two sodas, holding one out to him. When he reached for it, she jerked it away. He made another grab for it, surprised. Finally, he said, "Okay, okay, no court martial."

She handed him the soda, made herself comfortable on the couch again, and smirked the entire time. Carter and smirking didn't usually go hand in hand. Especially directed at him. Especially lately. "Interesting," he said quietly to himself.

When the volleyball scene they had been talking about earlier came on, Jack started a running commentary. "Okay, boys, listen up. In this scene, we're going to slather all of you in baby oil, no Anthony, not you. Now, everyone take their shirts off and go do some push-ups... no, no, Anthony, you leave your shirt on, buddy... everyone's been working on their tans I see... Anthony, seriously, put the shirt back on..."

Carter was laughing so hard she almost choked on her drink. He leaned over and clapped her on the back, a bit too enthusiastically. She pushed his hand away, still coughing, and managed to get out, "I'm fine. Thanks."

"Anytime."

When things had settled back down, he added quietly, "I think I'll ask General Hammond if we can install a volleyball court on the base."

Laughing, Carter said, "I don't think that's a very good idea, sir... Janet wouldn't like the increase in her workload."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, sir... can you picture Daniel or Siler playing volleyball?"

"Or the gate technicians!" Jack added, laughing.

"Or anybody playing with Teal'c... he'd bean them so hard with the ball they'd forget who they were..."

"Or General Hammond himself playing!" Jack managed to get out in between all the laughing.

They finally calmed down and turned their attention back to the movie, but Jack couldn't really get the strange mental picture of everyone at the SGC playing sand volleyball without their shirts on out of his head. He pictured Junior accidentally popping out of Teal'c's little pouchy thing and shuddered.

"What?" Carter asked curiously.

"I think I just gave myself nightmares," he said with another shudder.

"Well, we'll leave a night light on for you tonight," she said, patting him on the arm reassuringly.

An hour and a half later, Jack turned onto his side, pulling the blanket up more tightly around his shoulders. "Carter, where's my night light?" he called.

She didn't answer. "Carter? You asleep already?"

"Yes. I'm sound asleep," she said evenly.

"You've been spending too much time with Daniel," he commented. "Come on, you promised me a night light."

"The night light is with the _other _children, Colonel. Maybe you should go sleep with them."

"All right. But if Junior shows up in my dreams tonight, I'm blaming you."

"What do you... no. Never mind. I don't want to know," she decided.

"Yes, you do," he challenged.

"Um, Colonel, if you were to go to sleep right now, you'd only get about four hours before we have to get up in the morning," she pointed out.

Right on cue, Jack had to stifle a yawn. He started fake snoring very loudly. A loud thunk made him stop.

"What was that?"

No response.

"Carter? What did you just try to throw at me?"

"My shoe," she answered evenly.

"That's not very nice," he said, trying to keep the amusement out of his voice. "Okay, okay. Carter, I'm trying to go to sleep here. Please stop trying to keep me awake."

A strange sound reached his ears from her corner of the room. "What was that?" he asked. The only response was another similar sound. It sounded like she was screaming into her pillow. Realizing she probably was, he grinned and said, "Good night, Carter!" in a very cheerful voice.

---------------

A/N: The "Top Gun" trivia is courtesy of my brother Jack (Mark in this story).


	9. Wakey wakey

A/N: Once again, I am so pleased with the responses to this story. Most of the events have actually happened, for those who are asking, although I have squished several stories into one holiday to make it more entertaining. I wrote this story on a very long plane ride home after spending Christmas in Boston, so it is finished. However, with four children all younger at this point than they appear in this story, finding time even to transfer and upload is tricky. Luckily, my husband is still on holiday, so I do have more spare time than usual. Thank you for your patience and continued interest in my story.

Ch 9: Wakey wakey

A loud, very annoying beeping sound woke him up. He groaned; he was exhausted. The beeping continued. "Carter! Turn off your alarm!" he called.

The beeping continued, and there was a suspicious lack of movement from her bed. Grumbling, he rolled off the couch, onto his feet, and stumbled over to her, rubbing his eyes. As he had figured, she was sleeping right through her alarm, even though it was right by her head on the cluttered night stand.

He inspected the clock, but he couldn't find the button to turn it off. Granted, he only spent a couple of seconds looking for it before making a command decision, but still. He unplugged it. It kept beeping.

"What the..."

He turned it over, found the battery compartment, and pulled those out as well. The beeping, mercifully, stopped. "Ha!" he said triumphantly to the offensive clock, setting it back down on the night stand.

He looked at Carter. In the field, she snapped awake instantly, yet here she was still completely zonked. And curled up in a ball with really, really messy hair. Shaking his head, smiling and yawning at the same time, he shook her shoulder gently. "Hey, Carter, wake up."

"Get Daniel first," she mumbled, burrowing deeper under her covers.

He chuckled and said, "Daniel's not here. Come on. It's Christmas. Your alarm was going off."

"What time is it?" she asked, refusing to open her eyes.

"About five minutes after the time you set your alarm for. Come on. You gotta go watch all those kids open their presents."

When she still refused to move, he pulled the covers off of her. "All right, all right," she grumbled, finally getting up, pushing past him on a straight path to the coffee pot.

"Merry Christmas to you too!" he called, laughing.

He made the mistake of glancing back down at the bed. It was soooo early. Before he had thought twice about it, he was curled up in the warm, soft bed, fast on his way back to sleep. An insistent, "No way!" from his 2IC woke him up partially. "You have to get up too."

"I did get up. I got up and woke you up. Now I'm going back to sleep. You're welcome, by the way. Nighty-night."

"Come on, do you really think my nieces and nephews are going to let you sleep through Christmas?"

"If they're smart they will," he grumbled, clutching his pillow tightly as she tried to grab it out from underneath his head.

"The coffee will be ready in a few minutes. It's Daniel-strength," she tried.

"All right," he grumbled. "But you owe me."

He heard her walking away and heard the bathroom door close. He was awake enough now, but he wanted to see what she'd do, so when she came out of the bathroom, he was still in the exact same position.

"All right, you've left me no choice," she said quietly, a second before he was covered in something very cold and wet.

"Carter, what the hell!" he demanded, jumping up and looking down at himself. She was holding an empty cup that had obviously contained the ice-cold water she had poured all over him. She was laughing.

"Sorry."

"No you're not," he accused, pulling his tee-shirt away from his skin and getting to his feet to go to the bathroom. "For the record, I can think of a lot nicer ways you could have woken me up!" he called before shutting the bathroom door much harder than necessary.

Hoping he had given her something to think about, he went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. There were two toothbrushes next to the sink. Neither was his, but he shrugged and used the dry one, deciding not to mention it to his 2IC.

Trying not to shiver in his wet shirt, he groaned as he realized his bag of clothes was still in Carter's bedroom. Peeling the wet shirt off, he grabbed a hand towel, dried himself off, and went back into the other room. "Tell me you've got a dry shirt up here I can wear," he said as Carter handed him a cup of coffee, suspiciously not meeting his eyes.

"Umm... I didn't think about that," she admitted, biting her lip.

"So... that one's big," he said, indicating the large Air Force shirt she had been sleeping in.

"Yeah, but... we don't usually get dressed for Christmas morning."

"Oh come on. You're not going to make me tramp through the snow without a shirt on."

"You have your coat," she said fairly. He looked at her in surprise. "I'm kidding. Of course I'm not. I'll ah... put my sweater from last night back on. Unless you'd like to wear that," she said with a smile as she grabbed it.

"Ah, no thanks," he said. Nodding, she headed back to the bathroom. "If I remember correctly, it was snug on _you, _so I doubt it would fit me!" he called through the closed door.

Hey, if she was going to make him get up this early in the morning, he was going to be as annoying as possible.

When she emerged from the bathroom, still in her pajama pants, with the sweater she had worn the day before back on, and threw the tee-shirt she had been wearing at his face on her way back to the coffee pot, he knew he was succeeding.

He pulled the shirt on, looked down at himself, and shrugged. It was a little tight, but it would do. "So Christmas morning means pajama party?" he asked as Carter sat down by the door and started pulling on her boots over her pajama pants.

"Yes," she answered, looking at the clock. Or at least, where the clock had always been. "Um, Colonel, why does my clock seem to be no longer functioning?" she asked curiously.

"It resisted when I tried to turn it off," he said defensively, sticking his feet into his boots and grabbing his coat. "Ah, Carter, this may be a dumb question, but isn't your family going to wonder why we're coming in from outside in our jammies?"

"Umm... maybe. Yeah. Good point. Well, it's pretty early. Most of them probably aren't downstairs yet... still. Maybe we should, um, go in separately," she suggested, blushing slightly. "So they don't, you know, think anything... happened."

He shrugged. "Whatever you say, Carter. Go right ahead." He stepped away from the door and waved her past him.

She looked at him suspiciously. "You're not going to go back to sleep once I leave, are you?" she asked.

"What? No, of course not! Does that sound like something I would do?"

She looked at him pointedly.

"All right, good point. But I'm not." She was still trying to figure out if he was telling the truth or not. He sighed. "Fine. I'll go first. Happy?"

She smiled and took the coffee cup he handed her. He left, grumbling. The snow had finally stopped falling, but it was still freezing outside. He hurried to Carter's back door and let himself in, stamping the snow off his feet as he closed the door. He turned around, expecting to be facing an empty kitchen, but found himself the subject of several surprised stares.

Karen, Anne, and Emily were all in the kitchen.

"Uh, hi," he said, shrugging off his coat. "It's ah... stopped snowing," he offered.

"Merry Christmas, Jack," Emily finally said.

"Merry Christmas. Uh... everyone up already?"

"Mostly. The kids are sorting the presents by name," she told him.

"Oh. Good. Glad I ah... didn't miss anything."

"Have you seen Sam this morning, Jack?" Anne asked curiously.

"Sam? Uh... hey, is that coffee?" he asked quickly, going over to the pot and pouring himself a cup. He wasn't even sure if they knew about that room over the garage, but judging by those looks he was still getting, he figured they not only knew about it, but knew that both of them had spent the night there.

"Well, _wherever _she is," Karen said innocently. "She better get over here soon or the kids will be asking about her."

These women were good, Jack had to give him credit. He had no idea whether they knew everything or knew nothing but were trying to make him think they knew everything, therefore tricking him into some type of confession. Either way, he figured he should get them out of the kitchen so Carter could make her entrance unobserved.

"Ah..." He smiled as the loud sounds coming from the living room gave him an idea. "Maybe we should all go in the living room. Try to help control the... chaos," he suggested with a grin.

They nodded and everyone started filing out of the kitchen.

"Very smooth," Emily said to him under her breath as she passed him.

Rolling his eyes, he stepped from the nice, quiet kitchen into one of the craziest messes he had ever seen. The room was full of people and presents, and the kids were unable to contain their excitement, and growing impatient the longer they were made to wait for their gifts.

He spotted a spare bit of space on one of the couches and waded through the crowd for it. He had just sat down when Chris flopped down next to him with a big grin. "Merry Christmas, Jack. You look exhausted."

"Thanks. You look entirely too awake for a college student at this hour."

"Oh, you know. Once a year," he said vaguely, waving his hand at the chaos.

"They don't bring most of the kids' presents... Santa drops those off at their houses for when they get home, but still. That many kids, a couple of gifts each, plus all the family exchange..."

"Yeah. Looks like the North Pole," Jack commented.

Chris laughed and said, "Since it's Christmas, I'm not even going to ask where you and my sister ended up last night."

Jack laughed and said, "Ah, thanks. I guess. I mean, not that there's anything to hide..."

"No, no, of course not," Chris agreed sarcastically. A chorus of greetings directed their attention to Carter, who had just entered with her own coffee cup in hand. "Speak of the devil," Chris commented.

"Auntie's here, let's start!" Matty yelled above the crowd.

The other kids, rather than waiting for the adults to come up with some guidelines for the proceedings, took that as their cue to start ripping through wrapping paper. Jack watched them, amused at the sheer enthusiasm and delight they were capable of displaying so early in the morning. Chris slid down the couch and Carter sat down next to him, smiling at the children that was wreaking havoc on her living room.

"Gee, I'm so glad we spent such a long time cleaning your house up," he commented quietly.

She laughed and said, "Oh, come on, they're having fun. Umm, Colonel, I was wondering if you wanted me to give you your present now, or save it for New Year's when we exchange with everyone else."

"I've got yours in my truck too, but... let's just stick with the original plan. If that's okay with you."

"Of course."

"Hey, I don't need this, thank you very much, I do just fine on my own!" Chris objected from Carter's other side, holding up the gift he had just opened.

All the adults started laughing. "Who's this from anyway," Chris asked, looking at the tag. "Jamie! You asshole!"

"UNCLE CHARLIE SAID A BAD WORD!" A chorus of voices started, while Chris's brothers started punching at him halfheartedly for "swearing in front of innocent ears," as Mark put it.

Chris snorted. "If they live with you I doubt they still have innocent ears," he said, shoving his brother off of him.

"What's the gift anyway?" Carter asked. He showed it to them both. It was a hat with a fake sprig of mistletoe on a giant springy thing above it.

Carter laughed and hugged her little brother, glaring at Jamie. "Of course you don't need it, Chris. Jamie was obviously reliving his own college experiences."

"Thank you, Sam," Chris said, tossing the hat at his brother. "Jack, thanks for all the backup on that one," he said, leaning around Sam and poking him.

Jack laughed. "I wouldn't dare get in the middle of your family squabbles."

"Uncle Chris, come help me put this together!" somebody called.

Sighing, Chris said, "Duty calls." He got up, ruffling Carter's hair. She swatted his hand away as he went over to whoever had been calling for his help.

Jack watched the kids continuing to open their presents, stifling a yawn. He was still tired. Which explained why he didn't sense Conor sneaking up behind him and putting Chris's mistletoe hat on him until it was too late. He made a half-hearted grab at the kid over the back of the couch, but he was already scampering away, giggling and calling, "I did it, Auntie!"

Jack looked around for the offending 'auntie,' but realized there were so many of them in the room it could have been any of them. Or all of them.

He glanced at Carter nervously. She too was looking at all the women suspiciously. She knew them better than he did, she'd probably be able to figure out who it was. She was also blushing bright red already.

"Come on, Uncle Jack, it's tradition," Chris called.

He shrugged, grinning at Carter, his eyes twinkling. She got a slightly scared look on her face that he really liked. She actually thought he was going to... it was Christmas and he was having a blast, but he wasn't stupid. There was no way he was going to really, really kiss her. At least not in front of her whole family. Or when they weren't caught in a time loop.

He had been harboring the suspicion that if he ever did, they would both be in big trouble. Still, the longer he put it off, the longer all the adults and the few children who found them more entertaining than unwrapped boxes were going to be watching them expectantly. He wrapped his arms around Carter's shoulders, pulled her slightly closer to him, and kissed her on the cheek. From the way she squirmed slightly, he figured he probably needed to shave.

"Well, that was lame," Chris said, plucking the hat off his head. "You are not worthy of the hat," he declared.

Jack shrugged, glancing sideways at Carter to make sure she was okay. She wasn't looking at him, but from the profile he was getting, he thought she looked relieved. And she hadn't complained that he hadn't moved the arm he had around her yet.

Luckily, the room was full of so many excited children, the attention that had been focused on them didn't last long. They watched the rest of the proceedings in comfortable silence, and Jack was even starting to fall asleep again when Sydney came over to them, holding something behind her back.

She stopped in front of him.

"Hey. Merry Christmas," Jack said, smiling at her. She smiled at him and started to say something, but Julia, Gwen, and Lily ran past her in the small space between the couch and coffee table, bumping into her and throwing her off balance.

Carter leaned forward quickly and steadied her. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah. Umm, Uncle Jack, I made you this," she said, handing him a folded piece of construction paper.

"You did? Wow!" he said, looking at it appreciatively. The cover had a picture of a Christmas tree on it and said, "Merry Christmas Uncle Jack."

"Did I spell it right?" she asked nervously.

"You spelled it perfectly," he said with a smile, opening it up. She had drawn a picture inside that was a bit hard to make out. "Wow, this is great!" he said.

She climbed into Carter's lap so she could lean over and point at the card. "That's a snowman, that's you flying in a plane, that's Auntie flying in _her _plane, that's a bear cuz I like to draw bears, and that's me," she explained.

He grinned. "Of course it is. Thank you, Sydney." He leaned in and hugged her, then sat back and continued to admire the card.

"Syddo, you've got one more over here, sweetheart!" Emily called from over by the tree.

"Yes!" Sydney exclaimed, scrambling off Carter and picking her way through the mess of people and wrapping paper.

Jack watched her go and laughed, turning to Carter. He froze. She was giving him the look. The really, really unguarded one. He used to get it sometimes, but it had been a long time. He'd gotten a similar look when she was trapped on the other end of that damn force field after their armbands came off, but that wasn't the same. That was the unguarded but still really scared and/or sad look. This one was unguarded and happy. It always took him by surprise, and he had no defense for it, except to stare back at her until one of them snapped out of it.

It was her. Clearing her throat and looking away, she said, "You've got a new fan."

"Ah, yeah. Apparently," he agreed. Unable to resist, he added, "Well, it's good to see she's not _exactly _like you."

She looked at him in surprise. He grinned. "Her artistic capabilities are vastly superior."

She rolled her eyes and looked away, trying hard not to smile.

One of the little girls Jack hadn't seen very much came over, carrying a book. Both were grateful for the distraction. "Auntie will you wead me this?" she asked, handing her the book.

"Of course, sweetie," Carter said quickly, pulling the tiny girl up into her lap. "Did you just get this?"

"Yeah."

"Whatcha got there?" Jack asked curiously, looking at the cover. "If you give a mouse a cookie," he read out loud.

"I like mouses," she told him.

"Mice, Piper, Mice," Carter corrected quietly. Piper, that was it, Jack thought.

"Mice I mean," she said, pointing to the cover. "Read," she instructed, looking up at Carter. Carter cleared her throat and opened the book.

"Hey, I can't hear," Jack objected halfway through the book. Carter looked at him with that 'I'm worried about the Colonel' look. "What? It's an interesting story but I can't hear," he repeated, scooting closer to them. Since the room was so loud, Carter had been reading with her head very close to Piper's, speaking almost directly into the little girl's ear so she could hear over all the noise.

"Keep weading!" Piper insisted. Carter started reading again, loud enough for him to hear as well this time. He smiled in satisfaction.

After all the kids had opened their gifts and started to play with them, the adults all exchanged gifts. Apparently they had all drawn names. As soon as it was done, John and Nigel got to their feet and said, "All right, let's get started, guys."

The rest of Carter's brothers got up much less enthusiastically. Chris clapped Jack on the back and said, "If you want to help, come on."

"Help with what?" he asked.

"Oh, guess Sam didn't tell you. Another tradition. Christmas morning, the men make breakfast. But you don't have to help, you're welcome to stay here."

"No, no, I'll help," he said quickly, taking the hand Chris offered him up.

"Good. And in honor of the fact that this is your first year here, we won't even make you wear a frilly apron," Chris said with a grin.

"Thanks." Jack started to follow him into the kitchen but turned to look at Carter suspiciously. "So wait a second, you don't have to help with _any _of the cooking?"

"I'm helping for dinner today, if you must know."

"And we've got the fire department on hold!" Jamie added.

Chuckling, Jack went into the kitchen with Carter's brothers. Breakfast was easy, he thought. Anybody could do breakfast. He was put in charge of eggs. He set about making a giant batch of scrambled eggs, half with cheddar cheese, half plain.

Chris and Mark were working on the counter next to him, making lots and lots of toast and bacon.

"So... is it like an X-Files thing with you guys or what?" Chris asked after several minutes of silent working.

"Huh? You talking to me?" Jack asked.

"Yes, Robert DeNiro, I'm talking to you," Chris said, laughing.

"What do you mean, an X-Files thing?"

"You've never seen X-Files?" Mark asked, looking shocked.

"Ah, I'm not really into sci-fi," he said absently.

"Oh. Okay. Well, you know. Mulder and Scully, man," Chris said. Jack still looked confused. "The last name thing. This house is full of Carters. How come you don't call her Sam?"

"Uh... I don't know."

"How could you not know?"

"I don't know... we don't usually see each other outside of work. Except with other people we work with. So... I don't know, it doesn't usually matter. She's usually the only Carter around."

"Yeah, but..."

"I used to sometimes. Call her Sam, I mean. But she always calls me 'sir' or 'Colonel,' so I figured I should call her Carter all the time."

Chris shrugged. "You guys are weird," he finally concluded, patting Jack on the back.

"Thanks," Jack said. "I'll be sure to leave some eggshells in your batch."


	10. Snow and stuff

Ch 10: Snow and stuff

After breakfast, everybody gradually got cleaned up and dressed. The kids were busy playing with their new toys, arguing with each other, and having a genuinely good time. Jack looked around for Carter but couldn't find her, so he located Emily and said, "Hi. My bag's in your room, I was wondering if..."

"Oh, of course. I'm sorry, go right ahead, please. We're all dressed and everything."

"Okay. Thanks." He knocked on Carter's bedroom door, which was closed, and a little voice called, "Come in." He entered the room. Gwen, Kieran, and Piper were sitting in a triangle on the made bed, playing a board game.

"Hey, guys, whatcha got there?" he asked.

"Hi ho cherry-o," they answered.

"Want to play?" Gwen asked.

"Ah, no thanks, not right now," he said, going over to his bag. He grabbed it and headed for the bathroom. The door was open, so he went on in, stopping in surprise. "Uh, sorry," he said quickly.

Carter was sitting on the edge of her bathtub in her robe, still damp from a shower. Sydney was standing in front of her with wet, tangled hair that Carter was trying to comb out.

"Hi Uncle Jack," Sydney said with a smile. "I didn't take a bath last night because I was taking apart Auntie Sam's computer, so I had to take one this morning, but when I was done Mommy was getting the twins dressed, so Auntie Sam's combing out my hair for me."

"Uh, right. Good. Sorry, Carter, your sister told me nobody was in here," he explained.

"That's okay, Colonel. We'll go into the bedroom," she said, standing up and ushering Sydney out of the bathroom.

Carter paused, looking at him in concern. He supposed he must have had a funny look on his face, because she touched his sleeve lightly and said, "You okay?"

"What? Yeah, I'm fine," he said, smiling quickly. She nodded, but didn't look convinced. He shut the door behind her after she left and sighed, turning on the water in the shower, twisting the knob much harder than necessary. He wondered, as he showered, if it was too late for him to return Carter's gift for a robe that wouldn't gap open like that... just in case he was ever in the vicinity of his 2IC in a robe again. It was probably a very good thing Sydney had been there.

He showered, shaved, and towel dried his hair, then dressed in his remaining clean jeans and a black sweater. When he left the bathroom, the previously crowded bedroom was empty, although the game the kids had been playing was still in the middle of the bed. He set his bag down and started to head downstairs.

As soon as he stepped out of the bedroom, he immediately jumped over a remote control car that tried to eat his feet. Matty was laughing at the other end of the hall. He briefly entertained the idea of giving the car a swift kick down the stairs, but before he had time to weigh the pros and cons of that, the two identical twins, who were scarcely more than babies, came out of another room, crying.

Julia was right behind them, looking concerned and suddenly much older than her five years. "What's wrong?" Jack asked.

"We were playing beauty shop and Gracie got hairspray in her eyes," Julia explained.

"Oh. I can fix that," he said quickly, looking back and forth between the twins.

They were both crying, so he grabbed them both and hurried back into Carter's bathroom, Julia following quickly. "Why are they both crying?" he demanded as he started running the tap and looked around for a washcloth.

"I dunno, Kailey got scared when Gracie got hurt," Julia explained, sliding one of the girls down the counter and away from the sink, so he assumed that one was Kailey.

He filled a little paper cup with water and turned to the howling one. "Okay, tilt your head back. This might hurt a little bit but it'll feel better real soon..."

He guided the little girl's head back, pointed up at the ceiling, and held her eye open as gently as possible. He flushed all the hairspray out and patter her face dry. She was still crying, but no longer screaming. "Better?" he asked, peering into her eye carefully.

She nodded, sniffling, still crying a bit.

"Good."

"I... want... my...Mommy," she finally sobbed, throwing her arms around his neck.

"Okay, no problem, we'll go find her," he said calmly, rubbing her little back. He set the other one on her feet. Julia took Kailey's hand and led the way downstairs.

The downstairs scene was still pretty crazy, but this time it wasn't the little kids' fault. As he entered the living room, he stopped at the sight of his 2IC with her much larger brother in a full Nelson. Jamie was struggling to get away, but having little luck. Her other brothers were all cheering for one or the other.

"Umm, hey, Carter, where's your sister?" he called.

"Kitchen," she answered, glancing at him and smiling to let him know this was okay and apparently normal behavior for them.

"Right," he said with a nod. "Carry on." He followed the two little girls who were already on their way to the kitchen.

Emily was indeed in the kitchen, apparently in the middle of a lot of cooking, with the help of her sisters-in-law. "Jack, have you seen Sam, she's supposed to be in here helping," Emily said upon seeing him. She smiled at the kids and it quickly turned to a frown. "What happened?" she asked, wiping her hands on a dishtowel and coming over to them.

"Gracie, are you okay?" she asked quickly, taking her daughter from Jack. She held her tightly, rocking back and forth slightly, and looked to the other two for an explanation. Jack wondered how she had been able to tell which one he was holding from the back of the girl's head, but decided it probably wasn't the right time to ask.

Julia explained the situation to her, and by the time she was finished, Gracie had stopped crying completely and her breathing was back to normal. "Poor baby," Emily said quietly to her when the story was over. "Good thing Jack was right there, wasn't it? What do you say to him?"

Gracie lifted her head off her mom's shoulder and said, "Thank you."

"No problem. And she's in the living room wrestling Jamie."

"What?" Emily asked, confused.

"Sam. You wanted to know where she is," he reminded her.

"Oh, right. Well, I don't blame her, they've been bothering her nonstop..." Emily muttered absently, hurrying into the living room.

She soon returned with Carter, who looked normal except that her hair was slightly messed up.

"You know, Carter, I'm not entirely sure it's fair for you to use your combat training against your civilian brothers," he commented, leaning forward on the counter top.

"Hey, I lost every match I ever got into with them when I was little because I was so much smaller than they were. Trust me, it's fair."

"All right."

Chris poked his head into the kitchen. "Hey, Jack, some of us are going outside with the kids to play in the snow. Wanna come?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, turning to Carter. "You coming? Oh, no, that's right. You've got to cook, don't you... well, have fun," he said with a sarcastic smile, hurrying after Chris. An apple whizzed past his ear and smashed into the door as it closed behind him.

Fifteen minutes later, Jack found himself outside with Chris, Anne, Jamie, Mark, and all of the kids. "You want to do it now?" Mark asked, turning to his brothers and Jack.

"Yeah, before we get too cold," Chris answered. "Jack, you are about to be let in on yet another Carter family tradition," he informed him.

"Okay," Jack agreed.

"Right, it's going to be extra hard this year with all the snow drifts," Jamie commented.

"What exactly are we doing?" Jack asked.

"It's... sort of a relay race," Chris explained.

Mark was dividing the children up. "Okay, Matty, you're with Chris

."

"Woa, woa, woa," Chris said, holding his hands up. "He's way bigger than anybody else."

"Yeah, so you only get Matt and... Lily. All right?"

"Yeah, all right," Chris grumbled.

"Okay. Jack, you can have Conor, Piper, and Kailey. I'll take mine and Sydney. And Mark... Julia, Rory, and Grace."

All the kids went over to whoever they had been assigned to, all looking excited and especially cute bundled up in their thick coats, snow boots, hats, mittens, and scarves.

"All right, so we run to that tree over there, grab a kid, run back, grab another kid, run back, grab the third kid, and come back," Chris explained quickly, sending Lily down to stand by the designated tree.

"Nice try," Mark said, stopping her. "You've got two, Matty's got to go down by the tree."

"Fine, Matt, get down there."

Conor and Piper automatically headed after him, along with Sydney, Julia, and Kieran.

"So, when you say 'grab...'" Jack started.

"Yeah, by the end you should have three kids hanging onto you," Chris explained. "It's kind of stupid, I guess. Dad and our uncles used to do it when we were little, we still do it even though there are kind of too many kids now."

"I'm too old for this," Jack grumbled. He looked at Jamie, the oldest guy out there next to him. He was probably at least seven years younger, and probably hadn't had one knee surgery. Still, he thought. He _was _leader of the nation's flagship team in their first line of defense against alien invasion. So he had that going for him.

And the kids were so excited there was no way he was going to back out now. Plus he wanted to beat Carter's brothers.

"All right, Anne's in charge," Jamie declared. Once everyone was ready, she started the race.

Then everything happened very quickly. Even though it was just a friendly tradition, Jack's training wouldn't really let him do it any other way than to go flat out at the task until it was done, without paying attention to what was happening around him.

As he ran back towards Anne with Conor piggy-backed, Piper laughing hysterically because she was thrown over his shoulder, and Kailey more securely in his other arm since she was so little, he realized he was actually about to win.

"Fall, fall, fall!" the kids he was carrying all started to yell as soon as he got close to Anne. Chris was right next to him and he collapsed into a large drift with his pile of kids and they all lay there, panting and laughing hysterically, so he shrugged and did the same, wincing as his neck wrenched a little.

"That's gonna hurt later," he muttered. Yup, definitely too old for that. But all the kids were red faced, grinning, and covered in snow.

"We won!" Conor was yelling, jumping to his feet and making a valiant effort to pull Jack to his feet.

"Not uh, we won!" Matty yelled.

"I think it was a tie," Anne declared. Chris pulled Jack to his feet and brushed snow off his shoulders for him, grinning.

"I can live with that," he stated.

"So can I," Jack agreed.

Mark and Jamie were pretending to be very upset about losing. Mark was 'sobbing' hysterically, clinging to his brother, who was 'comforting' him and glaring at Jack and Chris.

"We lost to our baby brother and the old guy!" Mark wailed.

"HEY!" Jack and Chris both objected, looking at each other. Chris got a glint in his eye that instantly reminded Jack of Carter (I know, sir, we'll just hook up this electrically charged seaweed to the gate...).

Chris turned to his brothers and said, "All right, well, the old guy and I are about to humiliate you further!" He scooped up a lot of snow and showered his brothers with it, then jumped behind a large drift. Jack followed him and they started piling up snowballs for a fight.

All of the kids they had been carrying soon joined them, wanting to be on their side. Sydney defected to their side as well, grinning sheepishly at 'Uncle Jack.'

Ten minutes into the snowball fight, Anne started extracting the smallest children and taking them over to build a snowman, which was probably a pretty smart idea, because the fight was getting pretty rough.

Both teams froze as the back door opened. Emily and Carter were standing there, looking concerned. "You're freezing the children!" Emily scolded.

Everyone exchanged looks for a few seconds. The kids all had pink cheeks, but they looked okay. Plus they were clearly having a blast.

"We're fine, Mom!" Sydney called.

Anne brought the younger ones inside, but as soon as they had disappeared, Jack couldn't help it. He wanted to see what would happen.

So he threw a giant snowball at Carter, hitting her square in the chest.

All the kids around him immediately pointed at him, ratting him out. "Traitors," he said, grinning at her and shrugging.

To his surprise, she calmly shut the door without a word.

"Uh-oh," Chris said quietly.

"You're in biiiiiiiiiig trouble," Rory said.

Jack gulped,and a second later the back door opened again and Carter came out all bundled up, looking like she wanted to kill him. "Crap," he said under his breath, diving back behind the fort again.

The fight resumed between everyone, but from that point on, Jack's only real target was Carter. For her part, she seemed to have been waiting for years to be allowed to throw things at him without being worried about a court martial.

----

A/N: Personally, I don't really like my previous chapter very much, so I wanted to rush and get this one up quickly.


	11. Oops

Ch 11: Oops

Gradually, the kids got tired and/or bored of the snowball fight and wandered off to build things in the snow. A couple of them stayed to make the two opposing forts more impressive and effective and started creating piles of snowballs for the people on their 'teams' to throw.

Jack and Chris got Carter pinned between them and started inching towards her.

"Hey, Carter, aren't you going to be in trouble," Jack asked.

"For what?" she asked suspiciously.

"For ditching your cooking responsibilities to come outside and play in the snow."

"For your information, not only did I have permission from everyone in the kitchen, they all wanted me to come out here and put you in your places."

"Then they must be really disappointed with your performance," Chris said, indicating her trapped position. "On three, Jack?" he asked casually.

"Works for me."

Chris counted to three and they both threw their snowballs at her. She slipped and fell down, rolling over quickly and grabbing her shoulder, wincing in pain.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked immediately, hurrying over to her.

He barely registered Chris calling, "Jack, be careful, she's..." before she knocked his legs out from under him and he was flat on his back in the snow next to her.

"...faking," Chris finished, laughing at both of them.

Jack groaned and sat up, looking at her in shock. "That was _not _funny," he said firmly.

"Oh, come on, Colonel, it was kind of funny," she said, trying hard not to laugh.

He tried to keep glaring at her, but he was so relieved he hadn't really hurt her that he finally smiled, shaking his head. "Carter?"

"Yeah?"

"You're dead," he said, scooping up an armful of snow and dumping it on her head.

She screamed as half of it slid down the back of her neck, inside her coat.

"That's for this morning!" he declared, dodging behind Chris, trying to use him as a shield as she got to her feet and started towards them.

"What happened this morning?" Chris asked curiously, trying to get behind Jack, who was trying to get behind him.

"She woke me up by pouring ice cold water all over me!" he told him.

"Oh, yeah, that's how our dad always got us up for school if we were being slow about it," Chris said, dodging out of the way as Carter sent snow flying at them.

"Auntie, look at my snowman!" Rory called suddenly.

Carter turned quickly towards his voice, looking across the yard to where he was pointing at a snowman taller than he was. "Wow, that's great!" she called.

Jack didn't know what made him do it, but before he could think about it, he had reached out and snatched the knit hat off her head and taken off with it. She turned back to him, glaring, and took off after him.

"Yeah, should have thought this through," he muttered to himself as he tried to stay away from her. She was faster than he was, it was as simple as that. He ran in a really irregular pattern for a while, but it didn't work for long. She caught up to him and tackled him around the waist, knocking him back into a snow drift and landing beside him.

He could vaguely hear Carter's brothers cheering for her and mocking him for being caught so 'easily,' so he handed over the hat and commented loudly, "You know, Carter, if you wanted to jump me, you should have done it last night!"

Her brothers erupted into even louder laughter and she rubbed snow in his face. After he'd wiped his face so he could see again, he looked up at her. She was inspecting the hat they had been fighting over, which, in the fight, had become so covered with snow that it was now pretty much useless.

He took her momentary distraction to knock her legs out from under her exactly as she had done to him. She landed on top of him, automatically trying to brace her fall with her knees and hands. Her knee landed right in between his legs.

Jack curled up into a ball, uttering a string of expletives that made every child in the area go still in an impressed silence.

Carter immediately rolled off of him and tried to figure out what she should do. "I'm really, really sorry," she started.

He waved her away, trying hard not to cry as he squinched his eyes shut and saw stars.

"Colonel... what should I..."

"Just leave me alone to die in the snow," he gritted out.

She started laughing. He looked at her incredulously. "This isn't funny!" he insisted.

"I know, I know," she said, half laughing, half crying. But once she had started laughing, she looked physically incapable of stopping. "I'm so, so sorry, but... to be fair, you _did _knock me down," she said.

"Yeah, well, I'd say you got even and then some," he groaned, rolling away from her and curling into an even smaller ball.

He was starting to go numb, and at the moment he just really, really wanted her attention on something other than what had just happened.

To her credit, she didn't say anything for almost a full minute, then he felt a hand tentatively touch his shoulder. "Umm, are you sure you don't need to... I mean, go to the hospital or something?"

"No. I'll be fine. Tell General Hammond I'm putting you in charge of SG-1... and... Merry...Christmas..." he said dramatically, pretending to die.

She sat quietly for a few moments and finally said, "Maybe if you put some snow down there."

He couldn't help it. He turned over and looked at her and started laughing his ass off, despite the fact that it shot pain down to his groin every time he breathed in. He finally stopped and said, "Help me up."

Carter jumped to her feet and quickly pulled him up to his, brushing snow off his shoulders and out of his hair. "Um, are you... going to be..."

"I'll be fine. Just promise me not you won't tell Daniel, Teal'c, Janet, or Cassie about this," he said, wincing and taking a cautious step towards the house.

He looked around, just now noticing they were outside alone. He wondered at what point everyone else had left them alone. Judging by the look on Carter's face, she didn't know either.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked as they made their slow way to the back door.

"I'm fine, Carter. In fact, I'd really appreciate it if we just agreed never to mention this again."

"Yes, sir."

"Stop it."

"Sorry. Habit."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled, wiping snow off his butt and following her inside.

She stopped just inside the doorway and bent down. He nearly ran over her but stopped just in time. She stood up, a piece of paper in hand.

"What's it say?" Jack asked, peering over her shoulder to read it.

She unfolded the paper and read aloud, "Your turn, Sam. Look up."

They both looked up. The mistletoe had been relocated once again. Carter glared at the people in the kitchen, who were all having a very loud and obviously faked conversation, pretending to ignore them.

Jack was mildly surprised at how uncomfortable Carter was. I mean, sure, they had rules they always followed and everything, but this was the perfect opportunity to bend them a little bit. Still, it had been her choice before, with the Zay'tarc thingy, it was still up to her.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and said quietly, "Carter, you don't have to..."

Before he got to finish his sentence, she had leaned in quickly and kissed him, full on the mouth. It was a perfectly chaste kiss and only lasted a second at most, but for some reason, whenhe forced his eyes back open,Carter looked terrified.

He wasn't sure whether it was the fact that he was staring at her like he'd had his brain wiped clean by Thor, the fact that everyone in the kitchen erupted into loud whooping, whistling, and cheering, or what, but she hurried out of the room without saying anything to anybody.

"Crap," he muttered, hurrying after her.

----------


	12. Too close for comfort

Ch 12: Too close for comfort

Jack couldn't find Carter. She wasn't downstairs anywhere, not in her room. He figured maybe she was hiding up in the playroom with all the kids, so he completely bypassed the second floor and went straight up to the attic.

He stepped into the room cautiously, looking around for signs of Carter, but she wasn't there either. He turned to leave before any of them spotted him, but stopped as he heard Rory cry, "Stop! You're wrecking it!"

He turned back to see what the problem was. Matty was standing in the middle of a giant pile of Legos.

Before Jack could intervene, Sydney had got to her feet from where she was reading, glared at Matty, who was a head taller than her and probably weighed twenty pounds more, and said, "Leave my brother alone!"

"Shut up, Sydney," Matty said with a sneer.

"Hey!" Jack objected.

In the time it took him to cross the room, Sydney had already lunged at Matt, tackled him to the ground, and was on top of him. Jack saw her get in one punch to his nose before he grabbed her round the waist and pulled her off of him.

Matty immediately started screaming and crying, and Sydney was trying to squirm away from him. "Hey, be still," Jack said gruffly, throwing her over one shoulder, holding her legs securely.

He pulled Matty to his feet and marched them both out of the room. Sydney was still trying to squirm and hitting his back with her tiny fists, and Matt was holding his nose, which was bleeding profusely, so that Jack was having to steer him down the stairs.

He took them into the kitchen and the conversation immediately stopped. Anne and Nigel hurried over to them. "Matty, what happened, are you okay?" his mom demanded quickly, grabbing a dishtowel and pulling his hands away from his face, holding the cloth over his nose. His dad picked him up and took him over to a chair, his mom walking beside them, still holding the bloody cloth to his nose.

"Umm, Jack," Emily said. "Am I to take it from the way my daughter is now struggling to get away from you that she did this?"

"Yeah, she did, but it wasn't really her fault," Jack said, setting Sydney down on her feet.

"Yes, I'm sure," Emily said, looking at Sydney pointedly. She slunk over to her mom slowly.

"No, it really... well, I didn't see all of it, but Matt was picking on Rory, Sydney was really just trying to get him to leave her brother alone," Jack said.

"That's no excuse to hit Matthew in the face," John said to his daughter, going over to the sink to see how Matt was.

"I don't think it's broken," Nigel said as Anne went to go get some ice from the freezer.

"Sydney, go to Aunt Sam's room and stay there until we come up to talk to you, please," Emily said wearily.

Sydney glared at Jack as she walked past him. He sighed. "Well, that's two," he muttered.

"Two?" John asked.

"Yeah, apparently I've got two Carters mad at me now."

"Oh, Sam's not mad at you," Emily said dismissively. "She's just upset because our idiot brothers have been pestering her nonstop ever since we got here and found you. And Sydney's just mad in general, she'll calm down soon enough. She's six, she doesn't carry a grudge."

"Ah, thanks. Well, if my work here is done, I'll just go..." Jack said, backing out the kitchen.

He wondered if Carter maybe had gone out to her nest. He hurried into her room to grab his boots. Sydney was curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed.

"Sorry, I forgot you were in here," he said quietly.

"Free country," she answered.

"You going to be mad at me forever?" he asked, pulling on his boots.

"No," she said, looking up at him. "Matt would have told on me anyway. Thanks for telling Mom and Dad it wasn't my fault."

"You were just trying to protect Rory, there's nothing wrong with that in my book."

"Yeah, well Mommy and Daddy don't have the same book as you, 'parently."

He smiled at her and pulled on his coat. "Where are you going?"

"Trying to find your dear Auntie Sam. You think you're the only one mad at me?"

"Why is she mad at you?"

"I don't know. That's what I'm going to try to find out."

"Good luck," she said with a smile.

"Thanks," he said, ruffling her hair. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and said, "Oh, Sydney?"

"What?"

"Nice punch."

She smiled and nodded. He opened the door and was face to face with Carter.

"Sorry," she said quickly.

At the same time, he said, "Hey, I was trying to find you."

She smiled quickly and said, "I'm fine."

"I know, but... before..."

"It was weird. I know. Sorry. Let's just forget it," she said quickly with another too-big smile.

"Don't you think we should... talk... maybe?" he said quietly.

Carter sighed and said, "All right. Syddo, would you excuse us please?"

"I can't," she said. "I'm s'posed to stay in here."

"Syd, please. Look," she pulled out something from her back pocket and handed it to her.

"New sound card, yes!" Sydney exclaimed, jumping off the bed and running for the door. She froze and turned back to them, looking at Jack expectantly.

"Yeah, I'll take care of it," he said, waving her away.

"Take care of what?" Carter asked after she was gone.

"She's being punished," he explained.

"What? Why?"

"Well, I was looking for you in the play room and Matt was being a real jerk to Rory, so Sydney knocked him to the ground and got in one good punch to his nose before I pulled her off him."

"No," Carter said, looking shocked and impressed at the same time.

Jack nodded.

"Well... is Matty okay?"

"Yeah, probably just embarrassed his smaller cousin cleaned his clock," Jack said smugly. "It was a great punch, Carter, and that kid's had it coming... and she tackled him exactly like you did when..." his enthusiasm trailed off and he stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down.

"Look, um, Colonel, I completely overreacted before and I don't really know why, I mean, I know it's just a stupid tradition, it's not a big deal. Can we just forget it?"

"Okay. If that's what you want," he said a bit sadly.

"What do you mean?"

"I just... you know me, I get confused. I wasn't going to insist you... stick to the tradition. You didn't have to... but you did... then you got so upset... I don't know what happened."

"Neither do I though. I'm sorry. Can we just..."

"Yeah. Sure," he said with a smile, patting her arm. "Look. If you want me to go, the snow is probably cleared enough by now, if we can dig out the cars..."

"No!" she said quickly. "Why would you... I thought you were having a good time."

"I'm having a great time, are you kidding. But it's your family, Carter. If me being here is making you... get confused or whatever, I don't care. I'll just go."

She sighed, looking down. "Please don't leave. I'm glad you're here, I don't know what's wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you," he insisted quickly. "It's just the situation, it makes things... confusing. But I think we were doing a pretty good job up until then, don't you?"

"Yeah," she agreed, nodding.

He nodded slowly, opening his arms a little bit. She stepped into them and hugged him. He hugged her back, wondering if this was the first time they'd ever hugged each other when there hadn't been an injury or death involved. He was almost certain it was.

"Hey, do you watch 'The X-Files?'" he asked suddenly.

She stepped away from him and gave him the 'you're crazy' look. "Yeah... Teal'c and Cassie got me into it. Why?"

"Just something Mark and Chris were saying earlier," he said with a shrug. "Forget it."

"All right. I'm going to go make sure Sydney's doing okay with that sound card."

"Have fun," he said with a smile. She nodded and left.

He took off the boots and coat and went into the kitchen. "How's the nose?" he asked. Matty was sulking now, but seemed fine.

"He'll live," Nigel said.

"Ah, just so you know, Carter sent Sydney out of her bedroom without knowing she was being punished, so she's not in there anymore."

"Thanks, Jack," John said. "I'm going to go talk to the little lightweight."

"Don't let her give you the look!" Emily called as her husband left.

Three of the kids ran into the room and circled around Jack. "Come play hide and seek with us!" Kieran begged, grabbing his hand.

"All right," he agreed, following them into the living room, where most of the kids, plus Chris were assembled.

"Okay, raise your hand if you can't count to thirty," Chris was saying. Half the hands went up. "Okay... how about this... raise your hand if you can count to ten."

All the hands went up. "Better. Raise your hand if you can count to ten three times in a row." Eventually all the hands went up, less enthusiastically than before.

"Good enough," Chris said. "So everybody's big enough to be 'it' this year. Who wants to be 'it' first?"

Gwen and Kieran both raised their hands. "Okay, you guys can both be 'it,' but you have to hunt for us together, okay?"

"That's not fair!" Julia objected.

"Yeah, they're twins, it's okay," Chris said with a shrug. "All right. So... the chair here is base. You guys close your eyes and count, okay?"

They nodded.

"Now, no hiding together," Chris warned the kids. "And no going outside." He suddenly seemed to remember something and added, "And no hiding in the washing machine, Conor!"

"Aw, man!" Conor said dejectedly.

Jack laughed as Chris muttered, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and nudged him along.

The twins started counting, so Jack looked around. He figured it wouldn't be very fair to hide behind the chair, pop up as soon as they took off, and take a seat. He spotted the coat closet in the front hall and shrugged, deciding that was just as good a place as any. He stepped inside the small closet, shoving the coats to either side so he'd fit, and shut the door as quietly as possible.

He smiled into the darkness. He could still hear the twins counting together, and every once in a while a pair of little feet would run past somewhere.

"READY OR NOT HERE WE COME!" the twins yelled finally.

Jack waited. And waited. And waited. Either the rest of the Carter family was excellent at this game, or the twins were really bad at the seeking part.

Finally, the door opened. "About time," he said, then frowned as his eyes adjusted and he saw that it wasn't the twins; it was Carter.

"Get in here!" he exclaimed, grabbing both her arms and pulling her inside. He peeked around the door and shut it again.

"What are you doing?" they both demanded at the same time.

"Shh!" Jack said quickly. "We're playing hide and seek," he whispered. "What are you doing?"

"I was going to go out to the garage to get a screwdriver for Syd... I needed my coat."

"Well, you're not getting out of here now, if the twins see you they'll come looking in here."

"There's nobody out there, Colonel."

"Oh, didn't know you have X-Ray vision. Shh, they might hear you."

They stayed quiet for several moments, during which time it occurred to Jack he had just confined himself to a tiny dark space with his 2IC. Smart move, he thought with a sigh.

"What are you doing?" Carter whispered insistently. He could feel her moving her arms around.

"What?"

"You just breathed on me, my hair went everywhere," she explained.

"Sorry," he said. He wasn't sure, but he thought it had gotten about ten degrees hotter since she had joined him. Great, I'll be smelling lovely, he thought, reaching up to wipe the sweat off his forehead.

His elbow collided with some part of Carter in the process. "Ouch!" she hissed.

"I'm sorry," he said immediately, reaching out for her to see if she was okay. He grabbed her arms again. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, but it sounded forced.

"I'm really, really sorry. Where did I hit you?"

"Umm... in the... chest. Sir." Even though it was pitch black, he thought he could see her blushing. He realized he was still holding onto her arms and let go of her abruptly.

"Sorry," he repeated, shuffling his feet. "I'll just... put my hands in my pockets and be still."

"Good idea," she said. "Or a better idea... we could just _leave _the hot, stuffy coat closet."

"And quit the game? Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not even _playing _the game," she said, sighing in exasperation. Her sigh hit him squarely in the soft part of the throat. He shivered involuntarily, glad it was so dark there was no way she had seen that, and swallowed hard.

"Yeah, but if you leave, someone might see..." he argued.

"All right, all right. Hey, at least I don't feel guilty about kneeing you in the..."

"_Thank you _Carter," he interrupted. "I thought we had agreed not to mention that again."

"Sorry."

"And for the record, that hurts a lot worse than me barely _nudging _your boob."

"That was _not _a nudge!"

"Well, it wasn't the same as you falling right on top of me like your knee was on a guided missile lock to my crotch."

"I'm sure you've been hurt worse before, it's not like I shot you with a..."

"Oh, you have no idea how much that particular area..."

"I thought you wanted us to be quiet," she said suddenly, realizing they were whisper-yelling.

"Oh. Right," he said quietly, leaning back against the wall.

"Are you leaning against the wall?" she asked two seconds later.

"Maybe. Why?"

"Well, I think since I'm basically doing you a favor here, keeping your little hiding place secret, I should get to lean against the wall."

"Yeah, okay," he said, turning sideways. She squeezed past him, brushing against him in the process. As he heard her settle against the wall, he smiled in satisfaction. Already worth it, he thought.

"So, did Sydney get in trouble?" Jack asked after a few seconds of heavy silence.

"She had to apologize to Matty and she got a spanking."

"What!" Jack demanded.

Carter laughed at his indignation. "Yeah, the kids in our family get spankings. Come on, I'm sure you did too, you're much older than..."

"Easy, Carter," he said grumpily.

"Sorry."

"She's so little though!" he blurted out.

"Oh please. First of all, her dad did it so it was a lot lighter than when my sister does it. Second of all, she knew what was coming and had already put on three pairs of underwear and a pair of sweatpants under her jeans. I seriously doubt she even felt it."

"Oh," he said. "Well... okay then."

He could feel her shaking with silent laughter.

"What?" he asked defensively.

"Nothing."

He was about to reply to that when they heard the front door, which was only about five feet away, open and an all-too familiar voice called, "Surprise! Merry Christmas!"

----

A/N: Thanks for the responses, everyone. I especially appreciate everyone who writes in saying how much they like Sydney.


	13. Daddy's back

Ch 13: Daddy's back

"Carter!" Jack hissed as the sounds of her entire family flocking to the front hallway became louder and louder. "Please tell me that is _not _your dad."

"GRAMPA'S HERE!" a bunch of little voices yelled.

"Ohfercryinoutloud," Jack groaned.

"He's probably wearing a coat," Carter said reasonably.

"I know," Jack moaned, burying his face in his hands. He couldn't believe his bad luck. After all the times he'd been on the brink of death at the hands of a half dozen system lords and various other alien entities, he was about to be killed by Carter's dad. On Christmas Day at that.

"You go out first," he whispered quickly, trying to push her towards the door.

She struggled against him, trying to get around him. "YOU go first!" she insisted.

"Carter, this is going to look so bad, he's gonna kill me," Jack insisted as he continued trying to push her towards the door and she continued trying to push him towards the door. It was a pretty even match since they barely had room to move and it was pitch black.

"He's going to kill ME!" Carter countered.

"You go out first and hug him and while he's distracted I'll run out to my truck."

"Your truck is behind four other cars!" Carter reminded him.

"Carter! For once could you please not remember every single detail..." He realized they were getting kind of loud, whisper-yelling again. Luckily, the other twenty-ish people just outside the door were drowning out the sounds of their scuffle.

"Please," he said, trying to speak directly into her ear but only getting a mouthful of her hair instead. He spit it out, spluttering.

"Ew, you just spit on me!" Carter said, wiping off her face.

"How come your hair tastes like coconuts?" Jack asked curiously.

He was pretty sure she was dying to scream at this point. As that wasn't an option, she settled for shoving him towards the door. Hard.

He instinctively grabbed her for balance and his back hit the door a second before it was opened. He had a momentary view of Jacob standing there with his hand on the knob and his coat in his other hand before he was flat on his back, staring up at the light, with a lot of curious and amused faces looking down at him.

With Carter right on top of him, of course, his arms around her and their legs all tangled together. Yup. He was soooo gonna die today.

"Hi, Dad," he and Carter both said at the same time. She looked down at him and glared. Yeah, yeah. He gave her the 'what do you expect, I'm an idiot' look and let his head fall back against the hard wood floor. It made a loud thunk. All right, Thor, old buddy, he thought. Anytime you wanna beam me out of here... even if it's just to scrub Asgard toilets.

Come to think of it, did the Asgard even _have _toilets? Soooo not the time to ponder alien bathroom habits.

For several incredibly long seconds (really, Carter should make sure her house wasn't on some space-time continuum vortex or something, these were like the longest seconds ever) nobody moved or said anything. Jack tried desperately to think of something, anything, to say.

He glanced at Jacob, whose eyes were closed, and he had a pretty good idea he was hiding his 'other half' from the rest of his family at the moment. Or maybe Selmak had taken over to keep him in control. No telling.

"Hide and seek," he finally blurted out as Carter finally got off of him. She brushed herself off and hauled him to his feet. He winced as his knee popped loudly. Definitely way too old for a holiday with all of the Carters, he decided.

"You know, guys, when I told you to get a room, I meant one slightly larger than the closet," Chris said.

Everyone, even the kids who had no idea what that meant, burst into laughter. Everyone except Jacob, that is.

"Chris," Jack said, locating him in the crowd. "We were playing hide and seek. Tell them."

"I don't know what you're talking about, we weren't playing hide and seek, were we guys?" he asked the kids.

"No," they all chorused. "We were up in the playroom deciding which Christmas songs to sing after dinner and practicing," Julia said.

Jack groaned. "Okay, but earlier, we were playing..." He met Chris's eyes desperately and Chris nodded, pushing through the crowd and clapping him on the back again.

"Just giving you a hard time. Ah, I guess nobody found you to tell you the game was over. I didn't think you'd stay hidden for that long. Sorry, Jack."

Jack looked at Jacob cautiously. Next to him, Carter was doing the same, biting her lip and trying to gauge how upset her dad was.

"Jack, I didn't expect to see you here," he finally said with a very forced smile.

"I uh... huh?" Jack said very eloquently, looking at Carter for an explanation as Jacob took his time hanging up his coat in the closet.

She shrugged and gave him the 'I have no idea what's going on with him' look. Usually it was in reference to Daniel.

"Dinner!" Emily said suddenly. Jack looked at her gratefully. "Dinner's ready! We don't want it to get cold, do we? Everyone go get cleaned up," she said, sweeping the children nearest her in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

The kids all obviously wanted to stay and see what was happening, but their parents gradually moved them away until Jack was left alone with Carter and Jacob. Jack watched the last children head upstairs and really, really wished he was with them. Wincing at the pain in his neck and left shoulder from the fall, he slowly stepped behind Carter, trying to keep her between him and her father.

"Dad, I'm glad you came. I wasn't expecting you!" Carter said in a really, really too-cheerful voice.

"Obviously," Jacob said.

"Um, Dad, I know that probably didn't look very good but..."

"Sam," he said, sighing deeply. "It took a lot for me to get leave to come here. When I finally got here I had to convince one of the few Airmen on duty at the base to drive me out here in the snow. I haven't seen the rest of these guys in a very long time. I don't want to do this right now."

He walked past them, heading in the direction of the dining room.

Jack turned to Carter. Her eyes were filled with tears she was trying to hide by looking down. "Maybe he'll calm down during dinner," Jack suggested quietly, looking at her sadly.

"_My _Dad?" she asked, rolling her eyes, which were still bright with tears, and lifting her head to look him in the eye.

"Well... those kids are pretty distracting. And entertaining. Maybe they'll cheer him up. Take his mind off it," he said optimistically. "I mean, he's got to believe Chris... he just needs to calm down."

"I don't know," she said doubtfully.

"Look, if it were General Hammond, I'd be worried," he said, stepping closer to speak quietly in case they were overheard. "But your dad doesn't know anything about the Zay'tarc thing... does he?"

"I don't know, I don't know," Carter said, running a hand through her hair. "He might. Martouf had sent him a message saying I _was _a Zay'tarc, so I'm sure when he found out I wasn't he would try to find out exactly what had happened. Plus the Tok'ra aren't really into keeping secrets, so..."

"Oh no," Jack said quietly.

"What?" Carter asked, her eyes going wide.

"Anise. Freya. Whichever. I bet anything she told him all about it."

"Why would she do that?"

"Because she er... she came onto me. When we were locked up in those rooms. And she didn't... wasn't too happy when I kicked her out. So after she heard the... what we said, I'm guessing she was..."

"Crap," Carter said. "So Dad probably does know about that, and then the first time I see him since then we fall out of a coat closet together. Great."

Chris hurried over to them, looking over his shoulder suspiciously.

"Hey, guys. Look, I'm going to try to calm Dad down, okay, Sam? I'm going to get him to sit at the kids' table during dinner. I'll sit with him. The kids will be all charming and in between that I'll explain in better detail about the hide and seek stuff. And about the pipe breaking and all. Okay?"

"Thanks, Chris," Sam said gratefully. "But I'm not sure if that'll be enough."

"Yeah, I kind of got the feeling you already know each other," he said, directing that at Jack.

Jack nodded. "We've worked together."

"Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. Well, ah... I'll do what I can. Emily and I both think it would be best if you guys avoided him for a while, till he calms down. Remember that time Jamie broke his windshield?" He added with a grin.

"Yeah, somehow I don't think this is the same, Chris. He's not just upset because he thinks Colonel O'Neill and I... whatever. He's upset because he's an Air Force General and he knows the Colonel is my CO. Chris, if he reports this, especially given his rank and the fact that he's my father, he could ruin both our careers."

"He's not going to do that," Jack said firmly.

"He could," Carter said.

"He's not," Jack insisted.

"Jack's right," Chris said. "Just calm down and go eat, Sam. We'll sort this out." Chris gave her a big grin and squeezed her hand quickly before going back towards all the noise.

Jack decided, as he took another large bite of mashed potatoes, that if this was going to be his last meal, he could have done a lot worse. Everything was great, and nobody in the jam-packed dining room seemed remotely upset about the fact that he had tumbled not-so-gracefully out of the closet with their sister half an hour before. Of course, he had no idea how Chris was doing with Jacob in the meantime, but there wasn't much he could do about that now.

Jack glanced to his right, where Carter was moving the food around on her plate but not eating. Karen, on Carter's other side, squeezed her arm and said quietly, "Sam, done is done. It's going to be okay."

She smiled at them both and turned her attention back to Caroline. They were discussing baby names for the newest Carter. Jamie, Nigel, and Emily spent most of the meal telling Jack and John embarrassing stories about the rest of the Carter clan, obviously trying to remind their sister that she wasn't the only one who'd been caught in an unusual situation.

By the end of the meal, it seemed to have worked. She still didn't eat more than three bites, but she was at least listening and smiling, occasionally even adding a few details to their various stories.

After dinner was cleared away, everyone took their dessert into the living room so the whole family could be together. People grabbed seats wherever possible and made seats out of the floor, coffee table, fireplace, etc. Jack found himself perched on the cold bricks of the fireplace, Sydney and Rory on either side of him, several of the other kids on the floor in front of him.

His back wasn't too fond of the seat, but he wasn't about to try to squeeze himself on the couch next to Carter and Nigel. Jacob hadn't glared at him or anything, and was speaking perfectly amicably to Carter every time they ran into each other, but he didn't want to push it. Right now, Jacob was pretty much pretending he couldn't see Jack, and Jack was taking his cue from Jacob.

As the kids finished their desserts, they started to get very excited about something. "What's goin on?" Jack asked, nudging Sydney.

"We're gonna sing Christmas songs. We always do," she said.

"Yeah and we gotta stand here, so you gotta find another seat unless you're gonna sing with us," Rory said. "Are you?" he added hopefully.

"Ah, no," Jack said quickly, getting up to take his plate into the kitchen. Jacob, he failed to notice, was doing the same thing. They bumped into each other in the doorway.

"Sorry, go ahead," Jack mumbled.

"No, no, you were here first, by all means," Jacob said, much _too _politely.

"Please, Jake..."

"Grampa!" Gwen called. "Uncle Jack!"

They both turned to look at her. She was covering her mouth with her hand, giggling. Kieran, right next to her, was pointing above their heads.

"Crap," Jack muttered, wincing and glancing up. Yup. That damn mistletoe again. He was going to have to ask Daniel if it was possible the mistletoe thing was masterminded by some Goa'uld or something. It just wasn't working for him.

He glanced at Jacob, who looked like if Jack came one step closer he might snap his neck, witnesses or no.

Jack shrugged, deciding the best way to deal with the situation was to play to the crowd and go completely overboard. "Jacob!" he said happily, with all the enthusiasm he could muster. "Merry Christmas!"

Jacob actually looked more scared than Jack had ever seen him. Jack grabbed him in a manly hug and kissed both his cheeks with a very unnecessarily loud smacking sound. The crowd went wild, even crazier than they had done earlier that day when Carter had kissed him. He took an exaggerated bow and made his exit to the kitchen. Well, in case he was planning to plead insanity with Jacob, he had some good evidence for it now, he thought as he threw his paper plate in the trash can.

Jacob waited until he was clear of the trash can before he approached it himself. "That was one for each of you," Jack offered.

Jacob finally shook his head, chuckling. "Jack... sometimes you scare me."

"Thank you," Jack said with a winning grin, heading back out the kitchen. He paused and turned to clarify. "So, we're okay?"

"Yeah, we're okay," Jacob assured him.

"Wow. Didn't realize I was such a good kisser," Jack said with a smirk, hurrying back into the crowded living room before Jacob could manage to get the last word in.


	14. Playing

A/N: Thanks for the great reviews once again - that last chapter was my personal favorite, so I'm glad other people enjoyed it as well.

Ch 14: Playing

Jack sat quietly on the couch, in the corner he was fast starting to think of as 'his.' Carter was next to him, her father next to her. Jamie and Caroline were on the other side of him as well, so once again it was very crowded. Anne was perched on the armrest next to her sister-in-law. The other chairs were just as full. All attention in the room was on the kids, who were standing in three lines as if they were a professional choir, the tallest ones in the back, the ones so little they only knew parts of the choruses to the songs they were singing in the front.

So far, they had been through 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,' three songs about Santa Jack had never heard, and made a valiant effort at 'Joy to the World,' although it had somehow turned into 'Frosty the Snowman' halfway through. Jack stifled a yawn with the back of his hand and leaned further into the cushion, stretching his arm over the back of it.

It collided with Jacob's arm, which was apparently doing the same thing. Pulling his arm back as if scalded, he leaned back behind Carter's head. Jacob was doing the same thing, looking at him suspiciously.

"Sorry," he whispered, returning his hands to his lap.

He tried tapping his hands against the armrest and his leg as the next song started, trying to keep himself awake. Apparently Carter found this irritating. Interesting, he thought with a small smile as he noticed out of the corner of his eye that she was glaring at him repeatedly. He kept it up, right through the Twelve Days of Christmas (they got a few of them mixed up, but who was keeping track?) and through Carter's increased-frequency looks, pointed sighs, and sharp throat clearing.

Apparently, as the kids started singing "Jingle Bells" and Jack wondered how many songs they knew, Carter could take it no more. She grabbed his hand that was tapping his knee, pressing it flat against his leg, and hissed, "Would you _stop _that, _please!_"

"Sorry, Carter, something wrong?" he asked innocently. She rolled her eyes and let go of his hand. He turned his attention back to the kids just as things got exciting.

Matty, he would bet, was the one who started the 'alternate' Jingle Bell version, the one about Batman smelling (Why was it Batman? Jack had never understood.) Conor and Sydney picked it up as well. Rory, Lily, Gwen and Kieran apparently weren't too happy about it. They continued the original song louder than ever. The littler kids all got confused, not knowing what they were supposed to be saying, and just stopped and turned to look at the older ones, who were all soon yelling out lyrics at the top of their lungs.

Some had even taken the liberty to change the _alternate _lyrics, so that as the adults tried to get them to stop, Matty was yelling things like "Jingle bells, Sydney smells, Conor laid an egg!"

Even the traditionalists abandoned the song for new things like "Jingle bells, Matt's a dork, he can't even use a fork!" Jack had to laugh at the genius of that one. Soon the 'choir' started pushing and shoving, and four adults quickly swarmed, pulling them all apart.

"Hey!" Carter said loudly as soon as the kids had all died down. Jack turned to look at her in surprise. "Grandpa didn't come all the way here to watch you fight," she said firmly.

It was like she had flicked a magical switch somewhere, Jack thought. The kids all mumbled apologies and got back in line.

"That's better," Nigel said. "Do one more nice song and that's it."

The kids conferred for a minute, got back in their positions, and had apparently decided an encore of Frosty the Snowman was in order. When they finished, everyone clapped loudly. They took a few bows, all grinning, and Emily said, "I'll go make hot chocolate for everybody if you guys go get ready for bed."

They went upstairs excitedly. Several people went with them to help the smaller ones. Emily and Karen headed for the kitchen. "I'll help you," Carter said quickly, getting up to join them.

"Carter, do you know how to _make _hot chocolate?" Jack called after her.

"Very funny," she said sarcastically, heading into the kitchen muttering something he couldn't make out.

Jack looked over at Chris and Jacob, who were laughing silently. "Hey, Dad, remember when she got her first apartment, in college?" Chris suddenly asked.

Jacob chuckled. "Yeah, that was..."

"Crunchy," they both said together, erupting into laughter.

Jacob turned to Jack to explain. "She had us over, Chris was the only one still at home at that point, so we go over to her new place and she's so excited and everything. So she tries to make this big lasagna..." he was laughing too hard to continue.

Chris picked up the story. "So we sit down to dinner and she serves it up and she's just looking at us both, so excited about cooking in her own new apartment and all, so we both take a bite and..."

"Apparently, the recipe assumed that the chef would know to _boil _the noodles before putting them in the pan," Jacob continued.

"So, you're saying..." Jack started.

"Yup. Raw noodles, cooked in a lasagna. Very, very crunchy," Chris said as John came downstairs carrying Grace and Kailey.

"Oh, were you telling Jack the raw noodle story?" he asked. That set them all off again.

When everyone was assembled in the living room once again, Emily, Carter, and Karen brought in trays of mugs of hot chocolate and coffee. Carter handed one to Jack, who took it, looking at her suspiciously. She smiled at him and moved on, handing the next cup to her dad.

Jack watched everyone take sips of their drinks and smile contentedly. He shrugged and took a giant gulp of his. He promptly spit it out everywhere, spluttering it all over the place. "Carter, what the HELL did you do to this?" he demanded.

The kids were laughing because he had spit everywhere.

Carter turned to him and said in a perfectly innocent tone, "Well, you know me, Colonel, can't even be trusted to make hot chocolate or coffee... I must have used some of both... and some instant gravy mix as well."

Emily passed him several napkins, making a valiant effort to hide her amusement. The rest of the family was much less subtle. Jack went into the kitchen, cleaned himself up, and poured himself a cup of coffee, determined to get her back before the night was over. He wasn't sure how he was going to do it, but that part he could figure out later.

When he went back into the living room, Carter was hiding behind Gwen, who was falling asleep in her lap, making them both look too warm and cozy for him to plot a proper revenge. That's fine, he thought to himself. They have to go to bed at some point.

An hour later, all the kids were asleep upstairs somewhere. Caroline, John, and Karen were with them as well. Jack was having trouble staying awake, even though he was on his third cup of coffee in an hour. It had been a very full two days, and he hadn't slept much.

"Okay, tonight I say we play Pictionary!" Jamie declared.

"No!" Carter objected. "Let's play poker."

"Yeah, I'd rather play poker," Mark agreed.

"You two are just saying that because you can't draw at all," Nigel said. "Besides, we played your game last night, Sam. Tonight is Pictionary," he added firmly.

Carter sighed and turned to Jack as her brothers fetched the game. "You don't have to stay up if you don't want to, I know you're tired."

"Yeah, but not so tired I'm willing to miss seeing you suck at something for once!" he said triumphantly. "Nice try though." And here, he thought with satisfaction, is where I get my revenge.

She rolled her eyes. "I don't suck at Pictionary," she said firmly. "They're just lousy guessers."

Jack ended up on a team with Carter and her dad, and he soon learned that her brothers had been entirely correct. She was lousy, but he wasn't helping matters by guessing ridiculous things. She would start off by drawing a straight line and he would be guessing things like "A clown. A headless chicken. A purple monkey." She stopped drawing and glared at him.

"The category is ACTION," she said pointedly.

"TIME!" Nigel and Jamie shouted together as Chris leapt forward to the giant pad of paper to take his turn. Carter threw the marker at him and sat down angrily with her team, crossing her arms.

The game continued on basically the same path. Luckily, when it was Jack's or Jacob's turn to draw, they usually got it. Carter was great at guessing what other people were drawing, probably because her mind always worked so much faster than most people's, so they weren't really behind the other teams despite her lousy drawing.

Once she realized this, Jack could tell she gradually started enjoying herself, and even saw her fight to conceal her amusement at some of his more creative guesses at her pictures.

When the game was finally over (Nigel, Anne, and Mark had won,) Jack was exhausted. Chris suggested a few hands of poker, but Anne and Emily insisted they were too tired and needed to go to bed. Jack decided to do the same.

He took his coffee mug into the kitchen and started washing it out in the sink. As he was drying it off, Carter came into the kitchen for a refill of her own cup. "Going to bed?" she asked.

"Yeah. I was ready to go to sleep when the kids did. Looks like you need special training for a Carter family weekend."

She smiled and nodded. "Umm, I don't think I should sleep in the..."

"Yeah, I know," he said, realizing he was going to be sleeping completely alone out there. He didn't know why that bothered him; he was so tired he'd be asleep before his head hit the pillow anyway. And her dad was over their earlier scene, but probably wouldn't be too thrilled with them grabbing 'alone time' in the room above the garage.

"Umm... guess I'll see you tomorrow then," she said a bit awkwardly, setting her mug down on the counter.

"Yeah. Night." He smiled at her and she nodded, turning to go back to the living room. "Hey, Carter?"

She turned back around, looking at him expectantly.

"I'm glad your dad came," he said honestly. True, he had spent most of the day hiding from the man or terrified he was going to be injured, but Jacob had calmed down, and Jack remembered how disappointed Carter had looked earlier that week when she told him about how he wasn't going to be able to come.

Apparently it had been a good thing to say, because her face lit up in a surprised smile and she hugged him tightly. He hugged her back until she broke the hug. She stepped back a bit, still smiling at him, and finally said, "Good night, Colonel."

"Night," he repeated, smiling at her as she took her coffee cup and went back into the living room. He set his mug in the dishwasher and grabbed his coat.

Yup, still freezing outside, he thought as he made his way over to the cold metal staircase. The biting cold woke him up a bit, and he let himself into the warm room gratefully, fumbling around for the light switch. Shrugging out of his coat and stepping out of his boots, he went to the bathroom, got ready for bed, and looked around.

TV! TV was always good. He sat down on the couch and flipped through all the channels three times. Nothing. Sighing, he turned off the lights and slowly made his way over to the bed, doubting if he'd be able to go right to sleep. He was wrong.

He woke up sometime later to the sound of the door opening, instantly alert as his training insisted. "Carter?" he called with a yawn. He heard her jump and swear.

"You scared me, I thought you were asleep!"

"I was," he answered evenly. She closed the door and he could hear her moving around but didn't know what she was doing until a lamp came on way over on her desk, so that it wasn't too bright for him.

"Sorry," she apologized.

"S'ok. What time is it?"

"After two."

"Are you staying over here?"

"Yeah, I couldn't... I didn't want to stay over there," she said simply, going into the bathroom with her pajamas in hand.

Okay, that was weird, he thought as he heard the water running. She came out of the bathroom a few minutes later in her pajamas and went over to the couch. Realizing he should give her the bed back, he reluctantly rolled out of it, sending it a silent goodbye. He sat down cautiously on the couch next to her.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yes, everything's fine," she said quickly.

He must have looked as confused as he felt, because she smiled and said, "Sorry. I'm tired."

"Yeah. I warmed your bed up for you," he tried with a grin.

She smiled at the coffee table but didn't say anything.

"Did you win?" he asked after a few seconds.

"We stopped playing when it was just Dad and me. Everyone was too tired."

"Oh. Where is..."

"He's on the couch in the living room."

"Oh."

He watched her profile, trying to read her mind. It didn't work. She was working on something in her head, that was for sure. He finally slipped an arm around her, squeezing her shoulder lightly. Hey, he would have done the exact same thing to Teal'c. Okay, he probably wouldn't have smelled Teal'c's hair in the process, but then again Teal'c didn't exactly _have _hair.

After a very long silence, she looked at him and said, "I want to talk."

---

A/N: Yes, yes, I'm terribly cruel, evil, and all of that. The next chapter is the final one, and it's very long. Hopefully it will please you guys.


	15. Plan B

Ch 15: Plan B

"You want to talk?" Jack repeated quietly after she didn't say anything for a long time.

"Yes," she said, nodding at him.

"Okay." He slid his arm back across her shoulders and returned his hand to his lap. "What do you want to talk about?" he finally asked.

She gave him the look that said 'now is not the time to play dumb.' He nodded. "All right. Where do you want to start?"

"You fit in with my family better than I do," she said quickly.

Okay, that wasn't what he was expecting. "What? No I don't..."

"Yes, you do," she insisted. "You've known them a few days and you already fit right in with everyone. All I have in common with them is our childhood. This is the first time I've seen them in years that there hasn't been a big serious argument about the Air Force or whatever, and it's because you're here."

He had no idea what to say to that. "You're welcome?" he finally tried, wincing as he saw her reaction and figured that was the wrong thing to say.

She got up off the couch and started pacing between the couch and coffee table. He watched her, trying to think of something to say. She finally turned to face him and stopped, her hands on her hips. "You kissed me during the time loops," she said. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. And she didn't look happy about it.

"Did ah... did Teal'c..." he started.

"No," she said shortly. "It wasn't too hard to figure out based on how you were looking at me and the fact that if it had been me I probably would have done exactly the same thing."

"Huh? What?" he said. He felt like he was about five steps behind her in this conversation. Not unusual for them, but this time they weren't talking about naqadah or something, this was important.

"Oh, you heard me. I really don't think it's fair that after the whole zay'tarc thing, you kissed me and I have no memory of it."

"But... how do you know all I did was kiss you?" he asked, suddenly curious.

She rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't do anything else when I couldn't remember it," she said simply. Well, she was right about that. Still, it was nice to know she trusted him. Even though she was obviously still pretty mad about the whole thing.

"You're the one who made the decision not to take it anywhere. To leave it in that room," he reminded her.

"Maybe, but..."

"Not maybe. It was you. I thought we were pretty clear that was up to you."

"I know, but... when we left it at that, we were both in the same situation. Now you've done something I haven't done. Twice actually."

"Twice? Hey, I only kissed you once!"

"Do the words 'quantum mirror' mean anything to you?"

"That wasn't you!" he insisted, getting to his feet as well, squaring off with her. "That was _not _you. And for the record, in the time loop, I resigned before I kissed you so I could do it without you slugging me."

"I... you... what?"

"I knew we were going to start over again, so I handed Hammond my resignation and then I kissed you."

"In front of General Hammond?" she asked, suddenly sounding more curious than mad.

He couldn't help grinning. "In front of a lot of people actually. In the control room."

"The control room!" she yelped.

"Yup," he said with a smug smile, sticking his hands in his pockets.

He watched her closely. She wasn't mad anymore, for whatever reason (he wouldn't even try to keep up with her when she was thinking and changing her moods so quickly.) Her shoulders relaxed slightly and she met his eyes again.

"What?" he finally asked.

"Kiss me," she said quietly.

He was pretty sure she should be speed-dialing Dr. Frasier right about now, because his eyes were definitely about to pop right out of his head.

"Wh...what?" he repeated.

"You said I was in control of this," she reminded him.

"Yeah, but... that's like the worst idea you've ever had."

"Why?" she asked patiently.

"Because... because I can't promise to kiss you, knowing we won't be able to go back in time, and just be happy with that," he confessed. He always felt very verbally inadequate. He hoped his eyes were helping fill in the gaps in what he was trying to say.

"I'm ready to take the risk now," she said simply.

"Are you... are you sure?"

"Yes. Exactly like you did it before."

He nodded slowly. Okay, so they were actually going to do this. Well, at least he had gotten in that trial run during the loops. Although he hadn't been scared then, since he knew exactly how it would end (with Daniel blabbering and Jack eating froot loops.)

"Trade places with me," he said, stalling for time.

"What?"

"Last time, I was standing there, you were standing here."

"Oh. Okay." They switched sides awkwardly. Yeah, this is soooo romantic, Jack thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

After several moments, he still hadn't moved. "This must have taken up an entire loop," Carter commented.

"Very funny. And no it didn't, if you must know, but when I did it before, you were surprised. Now you're expecting it and..."

"Jack."

That did it. Something in his brain clicked into place and he closed the gap between them, slid his hands up to her face, and kissed her. Remembering the loop, he turned and dipped her back. He felt her lips curl into a smile of surprise against his as her arms went around his shoulders and she started kissing him back. The kiss went on longer than it had in the loop, mainly because he had lost all sense of time and couldn't really believe this was happening.

Finally, he decided to take some degree of control back in the whole situation. He stood up, pulling her upright as well, and forced himself to pull away from her. He watched her carefully. Huh, he thought, patting himself on the back. First time he'd ever seen her where she didn't look like she was thinking about something.

"You did _that _in the control room?" she finally asked, her cheeks pink.

"Yes, I did," he said, grinning uncontrollably and not caring.

"Very... 'Gone with the Wind,'" she said finally.

"Thank you." He looked down at his feet for a long time.

"So what now?" she finally asked, sounding uncertain.

"I don't know. By now I was trying to convince you guys for the millionth time that we were _in _a loop."

"That must have been terrible," she said suddenly. He nodded and shrugged. Not much else to say about that.

"Why... why is it up to me?" she finally asked.

He ran his hand through his hair. Should have just kept kissing her, stupid, he thought.

"That's just the way it is. I don't know... look, remember when General Hammond called yesterday?"

"Of course."

"Well, he said he was sure nothing was going on because he trusted _you. _Not me. You though. Enough to make up for me."

She nodded, letting that sink in, and said, "That still doesn't really..."

"You've thought all this stuff through, right? If I did, I know you did. Tried to work out different solutions? It's what you do."

"Yeah," she admitted, sitting back down on the couch. He sat down next to her and took a deep breath.

"Run through them."

She looked at him impatiently.

"I know, we've both thought of them all, but separately. Come on. Run through them."

"I retire," she said evenly.

"And then we're stuck off-world somewhere without you because you work strictly from the base and nobody else but you can get us home, and Hammond won't let you come through after us. That one doesn't work. Next."

"You retire."

"Next."

She looked at him in mild surprise.

He sighed and elaborated. "I retire, I'm out of the SGC for good, and if you think I'm going to sit around knowing you, and the rest of SG1 for that matter, are off-world somewhere in a dangerous situation, you're insane. Next," he said firmly. "We keep doing nothing for the time being. And we're right back where we've always been."

She looked down at her hands for a long time, and finally said, "What about Plan B?"

He looked at her slowly. "Plan B? There is no Plan B."

"You told me once there was always a Plan B," she challenged.

"Plan B is always completely insane and it only works because so far we've had the best damn luck in the galaxy," Jack objected.

"Well... okay, then. Plan B," she repeated.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying, what if we... moved everything."

"What do you mean?"

"The room we agreed to keep everything in. What if we..." she looked around. "Made _this _that room."

His eyes widened by themselves. "You're saying you want to sneak around and... Sam, that's crazy! If we got caught we'd probably be thrown in jail!"

"Maybe. But we've been in jail lots of times."

"Not on Earth."

"I don't think Hammond would let that happen to us," she said with a shrug.

"I'd rather not test the man, Sam!"

"You're calling me 'Sam.'"

"Well... Carter's not crazy, and _this _is definitely crazy!"

"It can't be any harder to stay together than it was to stay apart," she argued. She froze suddenly, her brow creasing as she starting doing that quick-search-through-all-the-information-stored-in-her-brain thing.

"What?" he asked.

"That's a line from my sister's favorite movie," she realized, shaking her head to try to get back on topic.

"Sam, think about what you're talking about here. This is crazy," he said firmly.

"But..."

"Your career would be completely over."

"If we got caught, maybe. Although I think I would just be forced into retirement and would keep working at the SGC. I keep all the 'doohickeys,' as you call them, working, after all."

"Maybe, but..."

"If we can keep the entire Stargate project a secret, don't you think we could hide this as well?" she demanded.

"Not from Daniel and Teal'c..."

"You convinced us you had turned all evil when you were on that undercover op last year," she pointed out.

He sighed in frustration. How the hell was he supposed to win an argument with her? Especially when he didn't even really want to win it in the first place.

He looked at her in defeat.

"You said it was up to me," she reminded him quietly. "It's my risk to take too."

He nodded and asked, "Why now?"

"I don't know," she confessed. "Just... a combination of a lot of things, I guess. I mean, obviously the zay'tarc detector and the loop, and then me figuring out what you must have _done _in the loop, although I have to admit I was a bit off on that one."

"Really?" he asked with a grin.

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd go to the trouble of resigning, much less kiss me like that in front of General Hammond."

"What did you think I would do?"

"I don't know, kiss me when nobody was around, I suppose."

"I can do that too," he said seriously.

She laughed and continued. "Also, I think it was... I don't know, this whole holiday thing with my family... you and I haven't spent tons of time together outside of work, I guess... knowing we get along easily when we're not in mortal danger... that we can be sort of normal together... I guess it was just sort of the last piece of the puzzle."

"Now, see, you should have been listening to me all those times I invited you to go fishing!"

She laughed again, which set him off as well. "So what now?" she finally asked.

"Well... tomorrow when your family leaves, I leave with them, halfway through the departures so as not to arouse suspicion..."

"I have to take my dad back to the base."

"Okay. And then we meet back here."

"That easy?"

"Yup. Only person who'd be able to find us is Thor." He smiled at the mental picture of Thor interrupting them during something intimate. He had a feeling it would probably only happen once.

"So... we're definitely doing this?" he asked, giving her one more chance to change her mind. He really, really hoped she wouldn't.

"Yeah, we're definitely doing this," she said, leaning forward and kissing him.

The whole thing seemed way to easy to be real, he thought, worrying slightly. Then he realized he was crazy because Carter was kissing him and he was thinking about other stuff. He turned sideways on the couch and stretched out on his back, taking her with him. She settled on top of him, seeming to agree with his wish to do this extremely slowly.

Hey, he wasn't as smart as her. It might take her a fraction of a second to memorize something, but he needed a lot longer, and he was determined to at least learn the back of her head, her neck, shoulders, and back right now. Which required a lot of time and attention to detail.

He also, unfortunately, still needed to breathe, and so did she. While he caught his breath, he adjusted the throw pillow underneath his head and smiled at her, brushing her hair out of her face. "You know, this is the third time you've been on top of me today," he said matter-of-factly. "I have to say, each time is getting better and better."

She blushed and buried her nose in his neck, which made him shiver. "Yup. Definitely better," he repeated, running a hand up and down her arm.

A knock on the door made them both freeze, then look at each other quickly. "No," Jack said firmly. "There is no way that is your dad, that is NOT your dad," he repeated, as if stating it with enough conviction would make it true.

"I'm pretty sure Dad would be _pounding _on the door, not knocking quietly," Sam pointed out, trying to calm him down.

"Unless he was trying to trick us into thinking he was someone else so we'll open the door."

"Oh, please," she said with a sigh, climbing off of him. She threw a blanket at him and said, "Pretend to be asleep though, just in case," as she headed for the door.

Rolling his eyes as he tried to unfold the blanket, he held his breath as he heard her open the door.

"Sydney, sweetie, what are you doing out without a coat on, it's freezing!" she exclaimed, slamming the door shut, probably with her foot, he figured as he sat up on the couch and watched her carrying Sydney over to the couch. She sat down next to him and he covered them with the blanket. Sam wrapped it tightly around the little girl, rubbing her arms and cuddling her to warm her up.

"I'm okay, Auntie," Sydney objected. Sam ignored her and wrapped the blankets even more securely around her.

"What are you doing out here, it's..." she glanced at the clock. "Four in the morning!"

"I couldn't sleep," Sydney said with a yawn.

"You look pretty tired to me," Jack commented.

"Matt was being a jerk and scaring me earlier, when we went to bed, telling me and Rory we better sleep with our eyes open, because he was going to get us for me punching him earlier. So we went to sleep with Mommy and Daddy, but Kailey and Gracie were in bed with them already and it was so crowded. Rory kept on kicking me and I kept on waking up. So I went down to sleep on the couch and Grampa was there, so I tried to sleep in the chair but he was snoring SO loud. So I came out here, because I knew it was just you guys out here."

"How did you know we were out here?" Jack asked, getting paranoid that everyone knew.

"I saw you come out here earlier, Uncle Jack," she said with a shrug.

He figured if other people did know, it would probably be good for Sydney to be out here with them, actually, because they'd know nothing happened. Well, not nothing, he thought with an absent smile, still sort of amazed at the sudden turn the night had taken.

"Okay, Syddo. Let's go get you tucked into bed," Sam said, standing up and carrying Sydney over to the little bed in the corner.

"Good night, Uncle Jack!" Sydney called.

"Night, kid," he called back, stretching back out on the couch with a heavy sigh. He could hear Sam fussing over her niece, tucking her in, talking softly to her. Everything was quiet for several minutes, then she came back over to the couch with the blanket, which she draped over him lightly as she sat down next to him on the edge.

"She asleep?" he whispered, absently rubbing her arm.

"Yeah. I'm sorry she..."

"Hey, this is what it's going to be like," he said simply. "We're going to be interrupted a lot. I'm okay with that."

"You are?"

"Yeah," he said with a grin. "I think it'll be worth it," he said, tugging her towards him and kissing her again.

She sat up, smiled at him, and said, "Yeah, me too. I'd better go..."

"Yeah," he agreed, letting go of her slowly. She stood up. "Hey, Sam?"

"What?"

"Try to think of a nicer way to wake me up tomorrow morning than the cold water."

She laughed quietly and said, "I'm sure I can think of something."

He nodded and watched her go back over to the bed. When she had stretched out next to her niece, he reached over and turned off the lamp, settling under his blanket. It was a long time before he stopped smiling and fell asleep.

The end.

---

A/N: Wow, that is definitely the longest thing I've written. Kate, who Sam is a natural to replace in this story, actually did get engaged this Christmas, but I'm sorry, guys, I just couldn't bring myself to write the whole cliché where General Hammond calls with special permission for them to 'fraternize,' which of course prompts Jack to immediately propose... I just couldn't do it. If you want to pretend that's how this one ends, go ahead. I myself pretend Dr. Fraiser never died and Pete does not exist, so I won't take it personally if you want to make up your own alternate ending to this. I was going for a happy yet not completely outside the realm of extreme possibility ending. Thank you so much for all of the interest in this story, and especially for all of the great reviews. I'm thinking of doing a sequel/continuation where they actually go to the get-together at Janet's that was mentioned in this story, but if I decide to do it, it just won't be possible for it to come out as fast as this one did. Once again, thank you.


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